Where the Wild Things Are
by Catheryne
Summary: Set 2 years after Graduation. The next time Klaus saw Caroline she was in New Orleans on the arm of his sworn enemy.
1. Chapter 1

**Where the Wild Things Are**

Catheryne

Summary: Set 2 years after Graduation. The next time Klaus saw Caroline she was in New Orleans on the arm of his sworn enemy.

AN: Please please leave feedback.

**Part 1**

**CAROLINE**

How apt, she thought to herself, as a clap of lightning and the rumbling thunder welcomed her. They were the first sounds she heard the moment that the door to the long black limousine opened. The downpour of rain greeted her, as if the heavens wept for or blessed—she really could not decide—her arrival to Vieux Carre.

Caroline glanced back to the shadowed vehicle, to the figure that sat there waiting for her to get off. Without another word to him, she turned and stepped into the water puddle quickly gathering on the street. She cringed. So much for her gray suede boots. The weather app on her phone was headed for deletion.

Then again, she thought idly, as the drizzle became a steady torrent, this rain was perfect for spring.

Caroline stood face up under the night storm, her lips drawing to a small, thin smile. She breathed in the scent. Call her crazy, but something was truly quite fragrant about water hitting cement.

Like the welcome that it was, the rain let up within moments. The street vendors that threw up large umbrellas to brave the water for the love of the festival just as easily folded up the overhead covering and tourists and visitors emerged from the various restaurants and bars where they had taken shelter.

Rain or shine.

The walk from the street through the parking lot was purposeful. Around her Caroline noted the few couples that had wandered from the jazz stage, where most of the people crowded together in laughter and blaring music, drunkenly stumbling through steps choreographed by a volunteer pro on the platform. Her face broke into a smile. Calculated or not, she would have to inject a little fun in her life, or else it all falls apart. It would not be hard. She loved dancing. Dancing was one of the things she truly enjoyed as Miss Mystic Falls.

She was definitely more coordinated than the drunken girls laughingly falling all over their partners.

She needed to be. No one was going to catch her tonight if she fell.

Caroline drew nearer and nearer until she was part of the audience, and she listened intently to the steps described up on the platfor. Watching the demonstration, Caroline moved her head to the rhythm of the music. Her fingers tapped on her thigh as she caught the beat. And then her foot, and she counted in her head.

There were men and women walking around the makeshift ballroom floor, where polished wood covered the rough cement for smoother movement. They were the pros, the volunteers. Caroline looked at each of the faces as they scanned the crowd.

And caught his eye.

The moment he saw her, she knew. She returned the gaze with a slow smile, and then she chuckled softly to herself, shook her head and glanced down. She knew she was still looking, knew it like she knew the back of her hand. Right then, Caroline glanced back up and met his eyes, then averted her gaze.

And he was making his way towards her.

When he was a few feet away, just then, Caroline grabbed the arm of the volunteer walking right by her. "Lindy hop?" she offered.

The man graciously proffered his arm. "Eight step, and then swing out," the volunteer instructed her.

Caroline felt his gaze burning at her back. She grinned up at her partner as the music kicked off. Hand in hand, Caroline and her partner nodded their head with the beat, a technique she allowed herself in fast, unfamiliar dances. At the count, Caroline moved forward into the closed position and settled into a quick embrace. The music grew faster, and couples around them started falling off the dance floor as tourists tired quite easily.

"You're quite the pro," commented her partner.

Caroline gave a bright smile. The longer she lasted, the longer the exposure. The better her luck tonight.

The man before her leaned down to her ear. "You wanna do an aerial?" he gasped, catching his breath with the steps.

"Thought you'd never ask!" Caroline laughed and hoisted herself up, helping him flip her in perfect partnering. The moment her feet touched the ground he hoisted her up again and with his toned arms flipped her over his back.

For a split second she felt like she was flying through the air, forgot for a small moment why she was there. The music ended with the band members themselves applauding her. Her partner gestured expressively towards her, blowing her kisses as she bowed and waved.

And she turned her head towards him. Once more. Made sure she saw. And he was duly impressed. Caroline nodded towards him in acknowledgment.

It was play time.

A few more dances, and every time Caroline looked towards the skyline, seeing the gleaming towers yet austere facade of the St Louis Cathedral. The ball in her throat grew, and Caroline shook herself inside trying to knock out images that rose in her head at the sight, knowing what was there, knowing what she was so desperate to find.

It was perhaps two hours later then, closer to nine than midnight, that Caroline turned on her heel to walk away from the dancing. She knew the way from which she came had a few people littering the way, so she turned a corner and used what she had observed was a less-trodden pathway.

She knew the moment the sound of a twig snapping behind her, that it was intentional. Surely someone that Klaus mentored had more finesse than to make such a trite noise. But she was supposed to be a tourist. So she gasped. And whirled around. And widened her eyes.

After the measured glances, after the come-hither she had learned from all the movies she had seen, after pretending to be as beautiful as those sketches of herself she had received once upon a time-

There he was.

Marcel.

The tall, dark man grinned at her, his legs splayed quite far apart in an overly relaxed manner, two pieces of a branch twirling on either hand. "I know your secret," he drawled, taunting. And he whispered into her ear, "I hear every breath you take, little girl. I hear the hearts beating all around me. Do you know what I hear from you?"

Caroline froze. She shook her head. "I don't know what you mean."

Marcel thoughtfully cocked his head, regarding her from head to toe. "Are you seriously going to be play dumb with me?"

Her eyes widened. She whispered, "What do you hear?"

And then, he told her, "I hear nothing."

Caroline closed her eyes. "You know," she said tremulously.

"Welcome to my kingdom, gorgeous," he declared.

Caroline relaxed, because it was a trigger. She had discussed this, come in to this prepared. Elijah would never have released her into the wild ignorant. And yet she knew she needed more than an acknowledgment of what she was, more than an assumption that she was not a threat. To do the job right, to make this worthwhile, she needed to be inside.

Caroline's brows furrowed, and she bit her lower lip. Marcel's easy grin faded. He had come so close to her, it was easy to slide up to him, taking care to press her body fully against him. "Don't tell anyone," she whispered, her cheek against his chest.

"Here in the French Quarter, we walk free," he told her firmly. "We take pride in what we are."

Caroline lifted her head from his chest, then looked up at him, her eyes brimming, intent, pleading. "Please."

"Running from someone?"

"I can't tell you anything." Caroline extricated herself from his arms. "Just please don't say a thing. I'll-I'll leave," she offered, knowing at least for now, she had him with the intrigue of the unknown. "I didn't come here to cause any trouble."

She noted the resolute look that came over his face. And then, Caroline spun on her heel and ran away.

One. Two.

Three, she counted in her head.

Eight.

Ten.

And exactly then, just as she had predicted, a firm hand grasped her elbow and stopped her midflight. Just as she had practiced, she said, "Just let me go."

"You're in trouble," he surmised.

"I'm in the worst kind of trouble-more trouble than you can imagine."

"Tell me."

"I don't know if even you can deal with this," she told him. "I'm more trouble than I'm worth."

It was a dig into his ego. Just as he said, Marcel stood a little straighter, a little taller. "And I'm the king around here." His grip on her arm tightened. "And I'll be the judge of that."

"Are you sure?"

"Over here, a vampire is at the top of the food chain," he assured her. "If I say so, no one touches you."

And this. This is what Elijah could never conceive. He had wanted nothing more than safe passage for her, so she could work with him in the shadows and never need to worry about being found. But this was the enemy. This was the threat to Klaus and the obstacle to his ambition. Infiltrating never occurred to the man.

"Besides, a pretty girl like you-what kind of king am I if I don't at least attempt to save a damsel in distress? I am, after all, a boy from the Old South." And when he smiled, it was brilliant. Blinding. "I was taught to be a gentleman."

"I don't want to impose." She licked her lips. "It's really late, and I don't have a car."

He broke into a cocky grin. "Then-"

"Caroline."

He nodded in acknowledgment. "Miss Caroline, your chariot awaits."

Caroline looked out in confusion at the empty parking spaces. He grinned and whistled, then raised a hand at a passing car. To her amazement the vehicle stopped in front of them and driver alighted, tossing the key to Marcel.

"Wait!" she called to him as he strode to the driver side. "I'm getting in a car with a stranger. I don't think my mom would have approved of this."

"Call me Marcel," he tossed into air, joking, "if Your Highness is a mouthful."

**KLAUS**

His brain was a traitor.

His heart had been one. That was clear enough in the myriad ways that his temper flared out of his control, in the proverbial yearning it had for Mikael's approval, in the utter loathing it spewed for his mother. His heart he knew he could not trust, and Klaus liked his heart.

He enjoyed an enemy he knew.

But his brain was quite some surprise. He stood a few yards away from the painting he had put on display, along with the many dozens of paintings and art installations that lined the alleyways leading to the cathedral.

It was no snowflake. Not a landscape.

And damn, was his brain a traitor. There was a pretty girl that had stopped twice, in the two nights before, and she had stared at the work. The first two nights she was silent. Tonight she turned to him to strike up a conversation. He much preferred her silent.

"I take it you're the artist," she said.

"What gave it away?" he said with a small smile. "The fact that I have been standing guard for the last three days?"

The young woman shrugged. "You didn't look like you were guarding it." She turned back to the painting. "You know what gave you away?" Klaus did not respond, and neither did she look back to address the question to him. "I can smell the loneliness coming off you." And then she finally glanced back at him. "It's coming off of you like it's stuck to your skin."

Klaus glared at the painting, then strode forward and grabbed the edges. He looked closely at the way he had blended the gold and the silver and the yellows and the whites, in one corner, away from the blues and the purple and the black.

He turned back to the woman and she jumped back in surprise. "What do you see?"

The young woman walked forward. She motioned to the painting, then gestured over the the bright formulation of textures, of how silver layered with gold and yellow in his effort to capture memories of bright blonde hair. "This is light. This is pure and hopeful and happy. And all around you it's black as night." She looked up at him. "The light's extinguished."

Klaus stared into the young woman's eyes, the ridiculous perceptive eyes. His glare was long, but the girl did not blink for a second. And then, his gaze shifted from the young woman's face to the street. Klaus released his hold on the painting, then stepped around the girl.

There she was, that face he never dared to paint again, the form he could not bear to think of.

And like he called for her, Caroline turned her head towards him. Caught his gaze. Klaus strode towards her. She made no move to flee, but held his gaze for the longest time he swore he almost lost his mind. This was how she looked up at him, long and hopeful and miserable, when they stood in his porch the day of her graduation. When he said goodbye. When he knew, just knew, from the way she shone and hoped and wept and shattered, that she only needed to hear the words.

But he had held his tongue, never invited her to come. Even though he knew, because she had never been so honest or clear or transparent in the way she had looked at him.

Two years, and Klaus thought them longer than a thousand.

When he reached her side she took his hand in a tight, fierce grasp. Wordless he took her to the first shadowed corner he found, and it was she that pushed him back against the wall. His arms were full of her when she latched onto him with her mouth. And then she was pulling him with her, deeper into the alley.

"Caroline," he gasped, "what are you doing here?"

She grabbed his arms and clung to his neck. And then she reached up and smoothed the lines of confusion from his forehead. "Don't think. Don't ask," she pleaded with him. Caroline glanced out back towards the alleyway, and Klaus wondered at the brief touch of fear in her eyes. Yet she thrust her hips towards him and she fumbled for the buttons of her top, releasing them and baring to him the creamy flesh of her breasts as they rose from the cups of her bra.

In the darkness Klaus caught her up by her waist and swung them so that it was Caroline pressed back against the wall. She raised her legs around his hips. He held onto her ass. In the darkness she was a speck of light, his spot of brightness. And heaven knew he had been in the dark since the day he walked away from that porch.

In the darkness of that alley, like in his life, there was only her to see, to feel, to smell.

To taste.

His hand slipped between them. Klaus' fingertips teased over the moist, warm panties. He pressed, and her head fell back, hitting the brick wall behind her. Her lips parted and she released a whimper. He pushed aside the underwear and thrust his finger inside of her wet channel. Her fingernails gripped tight on his back. When he slipped another finger inside her she cried out, and Klaus slanted his mouth over hers to muffle the sound.

Caroline clung to his neck with one arm and reached for the zipper of his pants with the other. She pushed down insistently, rubbing herself on his front. When she freed him, she grasped her length and guided him to her. She moved over him, throwing her head back and he could feel her stretching to accommodate as he filled her.

Klaus rested his head on her shoulder as he pushed inside her again and again, and for every thrust she met him.

"I wanted you," he gasped into her shoulder blade. "I never knew how much until right now."

She turned to him, and he raised his head to look at him. She looked like she would say something, respond, assure him. But she shook her head and remained silent, only cupped his face and moved up and down, her lips parted as she breathed through her mouth. She tried to swallow as her throat closed. Klaus thrust stronger and harder inside her. She leaned down and bit gently on his earlobe, then pressed an openmouthed kiss on his cheek as she came.

He pumped inside her, and Klaus almost groaned at the slicker, smoother ride after she had her release. "Don't hold back. Harder," she urged him. She widened her legs, tightened her grip in his, grasped his buttocks as she guided him deeper. "Let go, Klaus." And then her voice dropped. Closer to a whisper, as his movements became erratic, and her body tightened even more all over him, she cried out, "Remember I love you. Always just you." He came, and she showered kisses over his face, his tightly clenched eyelids, his cheeks. Klaus pumped inside her and spilled, and she hold him tight, allowing herself to melt all over him. "I never said it, and I don't think you knew."

Klaus turned his head and met her kiss with one of his own, and he frowned at the salty flavor of her tears.

He looked down at her, as she got back to her footing and Klaus reached forward to help her button her blouse. "Love-"

She gave him a brilliant smile, and then Caroline touched his stubble. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. "Never loved anyone like I loved you," she whispered, their little secret.

And then Klaus felt himself breaking into an idiotic smile. He leaned down and closed his eyes at the touch of their lips. When he opened his eyes, she was gone.

There he was, left standing alone in the alley. In the darkness, and the light was gone. Klaus started to walk away when a glint caught his eye. He bent down and picked up the shiny bauble from the ground and raised it up to the streaming light from the streetlamp.

He remembered the night, well into the next when he walked into home that Marcel had occupied as his own. Klaus arrived to the home not expecting the elegant affair. He spotted his brother, milling about the crowd as if he had been invited.

Perhaps he had. With his presence the last two years, and his own influence rising to rival that of Marcel's, in a fraction of the time that it took him to get power, Marcel would have been desperate to show the strength of those on his side.

Klaus walked over to Elijah, and before he could demand an answer Elijah asked, "What on earth are you doing here, Niklaus?"

"I could ask you the same thing, brother. Changed allegiances lately?"

Elijah shook his head and murmured, "I am keeping the peace, and the cool head."

The gathered crowd applauded. Klaus turned to the top step of the grand staircase. He narrowed his eyes. Marcel was ever the entertainer, and he would not have been surprised if he came down those steps while belting out an old folk song.

"Thank you for coming," Marcel said by way of greeting. He gestured to the various corners of the ballroom, mentioned the names of the prominent guests of each one. "Apart from thanking you for a wonderful season of festivities, I wish to thank you being here tonight to welcome someone I believe would become a special part of our collective lives."

Elijah glanced at Klaus. Klaus frowned and focused on that top step.

Marcel gave a lopsided half smile when she emerged, attired in what Klaus was sure were from another treasury from the old French owners of the house. Absolutely abominable, but she took his breath away.

Klaus stood straighter, his muscles coiling in tension. He watched her take his hand. Marcel gestured to her wrist, and Klaus gripped the bracelet inside his pocket.

Caroline scanned the crowd, and Klaus noticed that she had recognized Elijah because Caroline had nodded in acknowledgment at his brother's presence. And then, Klaus braced herself when Caroline's eyes met his. With a grim smile, Klaus took the bracelet from his pocket and raised it up, dangling the jewelry from his fingers.

She looked away.

tbc


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: **Thank you so much for reviewing the story. Please continue to do so.

**Part 2**

**KLAUS**

Once upon a time he had thought her an angel. Once she had been a shock of bright light he neither deserved nor wanted. He was the most powerful being on earth, incapable of death or destruction, and he had no desire to change. He had been above them all. All others immortals cowered in fear and seethed in hatred of him.

And there she was—perfectly polished like the silver in the royal solarium on display at the Hermitage.

There she had been, young and innocent and unsullied in such a way that was impossible for a bloodsucker. She had always been more of a faerie creature to him than a vampire. Powerful as he had been, he had just about bowed down to her.

Surprising as it was, looking at her now as she stood still as stately and elegant as before, Klaus recognized. She was not as picture perfect as she tried to seem.

His insides coiled at the sight of her. Marcel offered his arm, and she took it with a smile. Down the steps they glided. That bastard mentee of his that he had sired long ago still had the impossible grace of a dancer. Her smile was not so easy. Klaus knew when she forced it. It was easy to see that she had it on by necessity. She turned to the rest of the visitors and he swore she avoided another look in his direction.

Elijah stopped next to him and commented, "How on earth did this happen, Niklaus?"

It was the easy way she moved about in Marcel's arm. She leaned her head to the side as she listened intently to a story narrated by another young vampire from Marcel's circle. And then she laughed, throwing her head back with the effort. Her warm, feminine voice stirring in his gut sensations.

The memory of the hot slickness of her as he pushed his way inside her as she pressed back on the alley wall, the caress of her breath on his own lips wet by her tongue, the whisper soft sound of his name erupting from his throat when she came.

He had never been squeezed so tight. So ridiculously tight.

Klaus made a move towards her, and Elijah caught his arm. He turned to his brother.

"Not here."

"I will do as I please," Klaus returned.

"Niklaus," came Elijah's reminder, "you are surrounded by his loyal men."

"They cannot hurt me," Klaus claimed with pride.

"Then by all means start a rumble," Elijah allowed. "You may forget that girl may be the most defenseless here."

"Then let her get herself killed," Klaus snarled. He cursed himself and his stupid instincts, because even as he said the words he felt himself pulling back. He watched beneath hooded eyelids as she wandered away from Marcel to greet other guests.

Found his perfect opportunity when Marcel vanished into a room with his closest. He scanned the room for her. For a second he recognized himself—the one him—in the way he stalked towards her like a predator to his prey.

He was close enough to smell himself on her skin, and he swore he may have branded her the night before because his scent was so strong on her still that Klaus wondered if anyone else saw her and just knew. Her back was to him as she looked up at a painting on the wall.

"Yours?" she asked softly.

He sucked in his breath. Was surprised she knew. He had always moved stealthily enough that no one could tell.

"I knew sooner or later you were going to want to talk." Caroline turned her head and met his eyes. She glanced back towards the party, then nodded towards a nearby door. "Not here."

They were the only words he needed. His hand wrapped around hers and discreetly they slipped into the room she directed. Before the door slammed shut, she was pressed back against it and Klaus leaned both hands on either side of her, trapping her there.

Her lips thinned. "Let me go," she demanded. "And give me back my bracelet."

His eyes narrowed. "Which one?"

"You know which one I need right now, Klaus," Caroline replied, her voice taking on a rough edge.

Klaus slipped one hand into his pocket and then dangled the bracelet in front of her. "Rubies," he said in disgust. "Since when did rubies take precedence over diamonds."

Caroline reached up to try to snatch the jewelry from him. He swung it away and up, and instead of once more trying to reach for it she glared at him. "Stop playing games, Klaus!" she snapped.

He growled low and slammed his hand on the door beside her. She jumped. And fuck her if she ever thought that she was going to get hit. She should have known better, seen better, experienced better. He had burned and been subject to the torment of his own father in the hands of her and her friends and never once had he laid a hand on her. He had had her in his arms multiple times and it was he that had shed blood. "Games?" he exclaimed in disbelief. "I'm the one playing games?"

"Give me the bracelet," she repeated.

"The moment I saw you making eyes at the man who stole everything from me was when I stopped giving in to your demands."

"Klaus," she said, her stance softening, "he asked about it."

And damn her for thinking Marcel getting hurt that his girlfriend did not take care of his gift would make him want to give in. Instead, Klaus cocked his head, "What did you tell him?"

Caroline sighed. "I told him I seem to have lost it."

And he grinned with no trace of humor. "Did you tell him you lost it in an alleyway fucking my brains out?"

The words settled uneasily in his gut, because when he was inside her he believed for the first time that he was capable of being saved.

She closed her eyes. Klaus watched her face when the words washed over her. For a split second he thought he saw devastation, but when she opened her eyes they were hard, resolute. And they almost looked like stranger's eyes. "Sometimes I forget how terrible you are," she said softly.

And it was like she had screamed at him.

He swallowed, and saw her take a breath as she watched his throat work. Her gaze flew up to his. "Help me understand what you're doing here," he pleaded with her. She did not respond. Instead she reached for the buckle of his belt and pulled him to her. "Caroline," he said in protest, putting his own hand over his, "tell me."

Her eyes brimmed, and Klaus cursed at the injustice that he would be so moved, so easily, when it was she that had come to him the night before, she that professed the very words he had only dreamed about, she that started this entire thing again.

He had been perfect the way he was, drawing pictures in the dark, far away from her and the utter destruction that feeling the way he did about her just made possible.

And despite his reluctance it was he who leaned forward and pressed an openmouthed kiss on her lips. She pursed her lips and returned the kiss.

"Come with me," he said as he lifted his head.

"I can't leave."

"Is he holding you against your will?" Klaus asked, his heart fluttering with hope. "Because I swear I can get you out singlehandedly. These young vampires are nothing against me. I made Marcel."

"I choose to stay," she told him.

"Why?"

She stared at him for a good while. Klaus wanted to throttle her right then, maybe snap her neck so he could carry her away without objection. "I want to be here," she told him. And then, she licked her lips.

"You seem to forget what you told me last night," he whispered into her ear.

"Last night I was drunk. You know how easily I fall in love," she threw to him.

Klaus' eyes narrowed. "When I saw you, I thought you were in trouble. I thought I somehow brought it down to you."

"My world doesn't revolve around you, Klaus, even though sometimes you forget that you're not the center of the universe."

With those words, Caroline slipped from where Klaus had her trapped against the door. She turned her gaze away, as though she could barely stand to look at him. Klaus' grip tightened around the ruby bracelet. "So much for your pretensions of goodness and self-righteousness, Caroline. Turns out you are just as terrible as the rest of us." He could see the way her throat worked when she swallowed. The flicker in her eyes seemed like pain.

"You're not king around here, Klaus."

It stung—so hard. "And you can be quite the bitch with the razor-sharp tongue, can't you, Caroline?" His eyes narrowed. Klaus tossed the bracelet at her feet. "When I rise, I shall rise from the ashes of Marcel's kingdom. And when I do, I shall walk over every last one of you and not once look down in pity."

He grasped the doorknob and pulled it open. Behind him, he heard her say, "Be careful, Klaus."

Klaus looked back around. He paused, because as well as he knew her he recognized she was not done.

"Quick words you don't think through beforehand always catch up to you, and then it becomes too late to regret."

He bit back his tongue. "Well, Caroline, it's not too late to regret making a fool out of myself all this time—believing in a schoolboy's crush."

He closed the door easily behind him, then glanced up back at the party. Klaus saw Marcel looking towards him. Shit. As much as the girl increasingly irritated him, he had no desire to unleash Marcel on her, or have Marcel suspect he was related to Caroline by any means.

Damn him. Klaus never thought of himself as noble. Klaus strode towards where Elijah stood, then muttered, "I will distract Marcel. You get her out of that room before anyone sees her coming from where I was." Elijah did not budge. Klaus grasped him by the elbow. "Please, brother."

**CAROLINE**

She leaned down to pick up the bracelet, and Caroline noticed the way her splayed hand trembled. She gasped, then fisted her hand. She covered her fist with her other hand, then took a deep breath. She reached back down for the bracelet and found her vision too blurry with tears. "Dammit!" she exclaimed. She focused on the color blotch in her haze and grasped the bracelet before straightening up and hastily wiping away the tears.

Caroline snapped the ruby bracelet back on her wrist. She heard the door open again. She used the back of her hands to dry her cheeks and turned her back on the door. "If you're here for another round, I suggest you walk away, Klaus."

"Another round of what?"

Caroline gasped. She whirled around and saw Elijah with an arched brow. "I thought you were your brother," she said by way of explanation.

"Clearly," Elijah stressed. He closed the door behind him and snapped the lock shut. Caroline watched Elijah warily. "Is it your practice to address my brother before turning to check beforehand who it is?"

She flushed. "You know very well there isn't anything in this picture that is within my practice," Caroline retorted. She demanded, "What is he doing here? You were supposed to keep him away. That was your role. I did my part!"

"Did you, Caroline?"

She growled. "I hate you and your stupid one line questions in response to my questions!"

His lips quirked. "I believe it's called Socratic dialogue. You were learning it in your sophomore class."

"In the college you asked me to abandon because your super powerful Original Hybrid brother can't do anything right?" Caroline parried, still stinging from Klaus' words.

Elijah sighed. He looked down at his shoes, his fascinating, gleaming shoes. Caroline rolled her eyes. At the very least, he relieved her frustration with Klaus and his stupid hurtful threats. Where Klaus was passionately angry or coldly terrifying, Elijah was a breath of fresh air in his logic. He slid his hands into his pockets, then looked back up at her. "You were always Niklaus' distraction ever since he met you, you know."

Caroline was surprised. She had gleaned much from their brief conversations, but Elijah had never been so telling. "You told me you needed me so he could focus. How is my being a distraction help him?"

"The more he was wondering about you, these past two years, the less efficient Niklaus was. You do not want to deal with an unfocused Hybrid with dreams of grandeur." Elijah shook his head. "I needed you to come to the city safe, because Marcel knows the comings and goings into the city. All you needed to do was convince him you were new in the city, remove any suspicion on you so you are not followed around."

To his credit, Elijah had been very clear about that. When she received the information of Marcel's whereabouts, Caroline had planned it exactly like Elijah had suggested. Be seen. Make him aware that she was new in town.

But Elijah had allowed to slip that Marcel had a goal of obliterating Klaus from the face of the earth.

Not without reason. Klaus threatened Marcel and his way of life.

Still.

The moment she saw him, she knew she could take him.

"I saw a chance and I took it. Can you honestly say it's useless that I can come in and out of his house, and that his vampires-his family-think they need to protect me than that they need to hunt me down?"

She could still remember that look of his in Klaus' eyes.

She was drunk. It was too easy to fall in love.

As if she had not spent the last two years blaming him for making her fall so hard, only to walk away from her to come chase after shadows.

"I am not questioning that chance you took," Elijah assured her. Caroline walked deeper into the library. "You showed me." He allowed a semblance of gentleness in his regard for her. "Two years Klaus has tried to get under Marcel's skin to get some leverage, and the closest he'd come was almost killing Marcel's confidante with a werewolf bite, then offering his blood to be the savior."

She wondered if it was a woman that he bit, was oddly jealous at the thought of someone else's fangs breaking into his skin, someone's nose pressing into his wrists as she shared his blood.

"You were in Marcel's house within hours." He crossed his arms across his chest. "Within days you're driving my brother into quiet conversations with Marcel so no one sees you coming out of here right after him." Elijah shook his head. "For two smart people, you will be each other's deaths."

Caroline gave a small smile. "Good thing we're going to live forever."

"If you're lucky," Elijah pointed out. "Caroline, I am showing you that things can change in an instant, and we need to be prepared."

Stupid. She had been stupid. They could have been in full view. Marcel could have seen.

"It was a mistake, Elijah. You know how hard it is to handle Klaus." Because really, most of the time she lost her head.

"While we're talking about stupid mistakes, what were you doing last night?"

There was no answer to that. Not even with another question.

But she had given everything she had last night, everything she regretted never allowing since he said goodbye.

"I'm willing to wager, Caroline, that somehow you have been found out."

Marcel's eyes were everywhere.

And then, Caroline watched in fascination as the oldest surviving Mikaelson turned to his side and extended his hand towards her. "Take my hand, Caroline, and I can get you out of here."

And she had to refuse him the same as she had refused Klaus. "I can't."

Elijah's arm lowered. "You have been found out."

"You don't know that."

"You're willing to bet your life on it?" He shook his head. "You and Niklaus both deserve each other. You're a perfect match in utter foolishness."

The rapid knock on the door made her jump. Caroline glanced towards the door. She heard the key in the lock, and Caroline grabbed Elijah's wrist. "Swear on your sister's life that you won't tell Klaus what I'm going to tell you."

He narrowed his eyes, thinking. The door began to swing open.

"Swear!"

He nodded. "Marcel has a white oak stake."

"You're saying he will be a threat to Nik-"

"He doesn't know he will destroy everything here if he destroys Klaus." Her voice dropped. She licked her lips. "I'm not leaving until that stake is in ashes. Until then, keep your brother away. Do you part."

"He's coming back for you," Elijah warned. "You know he's coming back."

"Not if I can help it," Caroline swore.

Caroline sped to the doorway, and then greeted Marcel as he came through the door. When she glanced back around, Elijah was gone. She sighed in relief. Marcel turned to Caroline. "Are you lost?"

Caroline smiled brightly at him. "Absolutely not!" she replied. "I love history, and art. Your home has both." She sidled up to Marcel. "Sorry for abandoning you to your friends."

"Ten minutes into that meeting, I was ready to abandon them." He chuckled. Caroline found herself smiling at his infectious smile.

"How did you know I was here?"

"I know everything that goes on around here," he told her.

The hair on her arms stood.

And the party went on, with every hour Caroline eased knowing that both Klaus and Elijah had gone. As they wrapped up the night, Caroline scanned the crowd, remembering faces. She allowed Marcel to help her into her coat, his fingers brushing up her arms. She looked back at him and smiled.

"Before I take you home, would you mind stopping by somewhere?" he asked as he drove. Caroline froze in her seat.

The car slowed in front of a small cabin. Caroline rolled down her window and looked around. Quickly she got off the car.

She was going to die. Elijah was right. Marcel knew.

Of all the silly mistakes to make. She survive the Original Hybrid with most of her intact, only to be offed by his own creation. This was perfect. She was going to be offed in some isolated cabin. Just like many teenage horror flicks, as if she did not live and die through one.

Caroline was surprised when Marcel walked up to the door and knocked. The door swung open, and Marcel briefly conversed with the old woman. He produced a roll of cash from his pocket. He leaned down and argued with the woman. Caroline gasped when Marcel suddenly grabbed the woman by her knitted sweater and pulled her up. He dove in right for the jugular. A few seconds later he dropped the woman to the floor. Caroline scampered up the cabin steps and reached for the old woman's pulse.

She looked up at Marcel, who was wiping his mouth on his pristine shirt sleeves. "You killed her," she accused. "You could have gone easy and not drain her!"

He laughed. "Is that how you hunt?" Caroline pursed her lips. "You don't hunt!" he surmised. Marcel shook his head. "Heaven help you if you ever meet my sire, Caroline..." he trailed off.

Caroline abruptly lowered her gaze. And then, across the room from the doorway left ajar by the fallen body, Caroline saw a glimpse of a small curly blonde head. The child ran forward, a little over a year old as far as she could tell. With its chubby and stubby arms and legs, he toddled and bounced. The kid climbed over the corpse barring the way between him and Caroline. Almost immediately Caroline picked up the child and stood up, her skin crawling at the prospect of the baby touching the dead woman.

Who was obviously family.

Her eyes widened. "You killed a grandmother!"

"Relax," Marcel told her. "She was help I'd hired to watch the kid and the mom." Marcel reached forward and flicked the kid's nose.

He was fond of the child. He knew the child. Obviously, she thought, remembering the roll of cash that Marcel pocketed again, he was supporting the child.

"You like him?" Marcel asked.

"How can you not?" Caroline replied, giggling when the kid cuddled up to her.

"Good. Then he's yours." She gaped at him. Marcel clarified, "You like him, then you can keep him."

"Marcel, the kid is not a pet you just give away."

"Sure I can." He cleared his throat, then grinned. "I'm king."

"Is he yours?" Caroline pressed. It explained why he was giving money, like an allowance. "Did his mom abandon him?"

Marcel jerked his head towards the car. Caroline looked at him wide-eyed. "Do you want to leave him there with that?"

Caroline shook her head in horror. She held tightly to the... boy, she hazarded a guess based on the color of his diaper. She climbed into the car and held on to the baby. "We're kidnapping him," she murmured. "You are making me kidnap a baby."

"I'm letting you rescue the kid," Marcel pointed out. With a grin, he turned the wheel of the car and backed up, then made a u turn to go back from where they came. "The kid's mother abandoned him. That's what the nanny said. She didn't want to be a parent. She was no more than a kid herself, came here to find her parents before finding out she got knocked up."

Caroline listened intently, holding on tighter to the child in her arms as she listened. She regarded Marcel in another light. Marcel glanced at her with the boy. "You look like quite the couple there," he said, and Caroline was irritated at how charming he was. "Blonde and blue-eyed. If I didn't know any better I'd think that was your kid."

She turned the boy in her arms, then looked down at the pert nose and the dimpled cheeks. He was sweet. She missed her mom. She could not imagine anyone abandoning a baby as beautiful as him. Caroline hugged the boy to herself and she was filled with the oddest overwhelming feeling when the boy pressed his nose into the crook of her neck.

Marcel reached between Caroline and the boy, then pushed a little bit on the boy's head. Caroline scowled and swatted Marcel's arm away.

"Be careful with the little barbarian-been raised by wolves in the truest sense of the word." Marcel continued, "The little bastard bites. Make sure he doesn't break your skin." Caroline looked at the child in surprise. A werewolf baby. "But it would be years before he breaks his curse and really becomes toxic."

tbc


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: **Thank you so much for the reviews! Please continue to let me know what you think. It helps me process my plot and my thoughts, which is why I think the parts for this are coming in more quickly than my usual.

**Part 3**

**KLAUS**

The old house reeked of loss, and so even in the dark, muggy evening it was easy to find his way. Klaus turned the collar of his jacket up. He passed by the short stretch of wooden dock and noticed the small flat boat strapped to one leg. The last user had been careless, not minding to use the metal hook nailed to the wood, and so the rope had been dunked under the brackish water.

At least he knew she was in there, even though the place was pitch black and there was barely any light on.

Klaus reached the pebble path leading to the porch. He looked down and listened intently, heard quiet enough that he knew he had come alone. Not even Elijah knew this existed. For more than a year this was his one secret in Louisiana. There was no place for anyone else in here.

If only she would switch on a light, this would not be so horrid. Then again, light in his life was entirely a different matter altogether.

Klaus easily pushed open the door, and it was testament to her state of mind that she never even bothered to lock herself in. He looked towards the winding staircase and expected what he found. It was how he always found her.

The moonlight streamed into the room, and she sat on the bottom step almost translucent in the dim light. Half in the shadows, half in the silver moonbeam, Hayley raised her head and met his gaze with her own vacant ones.

"So tonight you bothered to show up," she stated.

But he owed her nothing and owed her everything. His head could not wrap itself around the irony. He tossed the bag he had been holding onto the floor, then rested his boot at the corner of it and pushed. Klaus turned around and switched on a light. "There's enough there to last you a week. I'll see about compelling some poor sap to get you a couple weeks' ration tomorrow."

"This is it," she said, and her voice was filled with accusation.

"I see no reason to come back here, Hayley."

And it was not the first time he said it, not the first time he realized it. From that very day she scampered into the wetlands against his wishes, heavy with a miracle child that the Roux Ga Roux fought over-

It was the night when that flimsy connection between them was severed.

"You are the reason he's dead," was the quiet declaration. "That is why you can't bear to look at me."

"I heard that before," Klaus responded. He turned to the young girl on that bottom step, small and bitter in the shadows, tightly holding her legs against her chest. She had run off to this—remnants of a grand life, of a family of Werewolves so controlled and powerful they reigned over the Bayou.

And for his immortal life he could not even care to stand by her, see to the protection of a woman who carried his child.

Once they had been allies. More times they had been enemies.

And one hour in his thousand years he had spread her on a tabletop and fucked her.

She blamed him, of course. When the wild things came and no one could tell vampire from werewolf in the pitch black, and she found herself stranded and giving birth, rising to consciousness to the bloodied rags and mangles remains in place of a child that had been meant for a grand destiny, cut off from life before it could even breathe.

"You couldn't even find who killed your own son!"

He had been raised by a mother who for the longest time showed him what a woman was capable of doing to ensure that her children lived. So when he watched Hayley the last year, he held his anger in check. Yet in the past year he listened to her, understood her, there was one indisputable fact that rose.

Her grief was not for her loss of a child.

It was for the loss of a dream she had held dearly and powerfully enough that the desire had called out to Silas.

"Get yourself out of this house, Hayley," he advised her, because this was it. This was the end. Where the last year he could spend this time patronizing her and letting her guilt him into a corner, the last few days Klaus saw there was still life and light to be had in the world. "None of them will come back."

"They came once," she tearfully reminded him. "My family, they came then, Klaus. I can't leave here. They need to know where to find me."

Klaus had seen enough of families in the last century to take a sliver of pity on the girl. He sighed and walked over to Hayley, knelt down in front of her. "Your family came to you when you were bringing something to the table," he said softly, horrible, horrible words that she needed to hear. "You were bringing my child, and everyone in the supernatural world heard the prophecy of my son." Tears filled her eyes as she looked at him. "They wanted him, Hayley, not you."

Hayley gasped, then pushed him away. "Tyler was right. You're the devil!" Klaus smirked, then pulled himself up. At the very least, the push of his hurtful words brought her to her feet. She stank—smelled of a wet dog that had not bathed in a while, and Klaus imagined how she turned into her true self and ran in the night, then crumbled in her own misery of being abandoned. "I thought at the very least that having that child between us would make us friends, Klaus."

He had only ever wanted to be friends with one woman. This was not her.

Klaus had wasted enough time.

"The child was a joke that the universe played on us both," Klaus said lightly. "I humoured fate by entertaining that twist into my life, Hayley. Elijah wanted a child in the family, thinking it would redeem me, believing it was our chance to become the family we had always wanted to be."

Not once, Klaus realized, had Elijah mentioned how this girl fit into that picture.

Fortunately or not, they were never meant to figure that out.

"One thing I learned, Hayley, in the months you carried that child and I had to play protector to ease Elijah, is how very much I am incapable of love." Klaus sighed. For once, he was saddened. If there was one thing in the world that Elijah had counted on turning him, it was this child; it was fatherhood.

Yet Hayley's belly swelled, and Klaus had felt the child move under her taut skin. His days had filled with the music of a tiny heartbeat inside that girl.

But the child was nameless, faceless. And he knew how truly incapable he was of being saved—because he could not love his son.

Could not help but wonder what if—

Klaus turned his back on Hayley and walked back towards the door. He turned the knob and heard her from behind him, whispering, "You let him die. You never loved him, so you couldn't be bothered to save us."

"Let it rest, Hayley, and pick up where you left off."

He stepped back out into the night, stopping at the porch and looking off to the uneven shoreline of the wetlands. There was a small white makeshift cross towards the rocky clearing leading to the edges of the shrubbery. He closed his eyes, momentarily remembering Elijah putting the marker together.

"So it's over."

Klaus clasped his hands behind him. He felt Hayley touch his arms, then rub up and down. "I never once lied to you that it was more than what it was."

"I wish—just once," Hayley said, "that you loved me. Maybe if you did we wouldn't be in this mess. We would have that child, Klaus, because you wouldn't have ever let us out of your sight."

Klaus desperately wished in his heart that he never died, because if the supernatural purgatory was ever brought down and there was truly hell, he knew there would be a special place reserved for him because even as Hayley spoke about love and a lost child all he could imagine was a vibrant image of a blue eyed golden-haired baby that shone as light and bright as—

"Pull your life together and move on, Hayley," he advised, pulling away. "I will."

**CAROLINE**

Caroline brought up her phone and snapped away, capturing images of the little boy running—no, bouncing—in the park. First, he would run away from Caroline and then, just when Caroline thought he was far enough, the boy turned around and would bend forward, then run towards her like a fast approaching capsule. And then he slowed when he was closer. Then, with a dimpled grin, he would launch himself towards her again and jump towards her.

She dropped her phone several times with surprise, but she swore she had never laughed harder in her life.

As Caroline scanned through the dozens of pictures she had taken, she frowned. She noticed a couple of faces first. They were in the background when she took Daniel to a restaurant for takeout. And then there were some watching them from the crowd of onlookers in the carousel.

She froze when she saw similar faces sitting on the bench around them in the park. One waved towards Daniel. Caroline rushed to her feet and ran after Daniel, taking him up into her arms. Wolves. She knew the scent of them, spent far too long with Tyler and his friends not to recognize. Caroline looked around her, remembered the faces of everyone in the crowd and knew. Wolves. She was surrounded by werewolves.

Caroline noted one stood and stepped towards her. Thoughtlessly enough, Caroline revealed her vampire face and snarled at the stranger, neglecting the fact that as a pack they could just as easily rip her apart.

She bent down and picked up her bag, then felt her entire body trembling as she walked briskly back to the car. Caroline strapped Daniel into his baby seat and climbed into the driver seat, racing to Marcel.

When Elijah first walked into her dorm room and proposed to her this ridiculous plan, Caroline could not have predicted the turn of events in her life. After a delirious chant of "Oh my god" in her head at the sight of Elijah Mikaelson whom she had not laid eyes on for two whole years, all Caroline could think of was how much she wanted to see Klaus again.

Because didn't he say in graduation that as much as he could he would reach out to her, that he would visit her, that he would call her on the best festivals so she could come by and see his kingdom?

And really she wanted to see Klaus to kiss him and kick him at the same time because save for a cryptic, silent call a year and a half ago he never reached out to her again.

Then Elijah told Caroline about this other king that was constantly putting Klaus in danger, who thought he had become greater than his teacher, and Caroline dropped college, packed her bags, and was settling into the stretch limousine that Elijah conjured for them—by compulsion or actual money, it was still magical enough to Caroline to think of it as a product of powers she still did not have. But she knew what she needed to do, and Caroline believed within the week she would either be dead or celebrating with Klaus.

She never thought she would have responsibility over the most beautiful angel she had ever seen in her life.

It was almost sacrilege that she continued to bring him—Daniel, Marcel educated her in the car—to Marcel's creepy, vampire-infested house. Once in her frantic search in the house while Marcel was away, she had glimpsed that stake in Marcel's bedroom, sitting inside the drawer of the bedside table, ready to be wielded should he be attacked in his sleep.

Caroline shuddered to think of what she needed to do in order to make her way back there without raising suspicion.

Fortunately, Marcel seemed to be fond of the baby, despite some of his less than perfect references to Daniel's heritage. She chalked it up to the bad blood between all other vampires and werewolves, because she had seen enough evidence that Marcel had cared for Daniel for a long time.

"Hello Danny boy!" Marcel greeted warmly, taking the baby from Caroline's arms and lifting him high up in the air, with the child exploding in giggles.

Caroline bit back a complaint, but when Marcel jiggled the kid, she cried out, "That's unsafe!"

Marcel raised an eyebrow at her. "And mommy."

Caroline's eyes widened and her voice dropped. "I'm not his mom," she whispered.

"I know." He winked at her. "But you've carrying Daniel around for almost two months. No one's raised a kidnapping alert. The kid's abandoned. I think we can safely say you're his mommy. It would really make him feel better than if he grew up thinking you're some stranger."

She sighed. It was a supernatural baby, and she had forever to live for to be alone. It was not as if she was ever going to have a baby of her own. "I insist we search the missing children database, in case someone's looking for him."

The boy reached down and touched Marcel's head. "Ruff!"

Marcel grinned and turned to Caroline. "Did that werewolf kid just bark at me?" He chuckled. "You're supposed to howl, kid, not bark like a puppy."

There was a surge of protectiveness over her. Caroline reached for Daniel and took him from Marcel's arms. "We're learning really simple words, so don't be crass," she lectured. Caroline reached forward and rubbed Marcel's head, "Your head is rough." And then Daniel's hands cupped both of her cheeks, a gesture the child liked and Caroline adored. With a thrill, she declared, "My face is smooth."

Caroline saw Marcel's face from the corner of her eye. She turned to him and he nodded with a smile, "So it is."

It could be so simple to get into that bedroom, she thought. Caroline shook the thought out of her brain. She focused back on the boy, who gave her a gummy grin. How could Marcel repeat over and over that he was a werewolf, when he barely had three teeth all in all. "Daniel has cute dimples," she said to the baby.

"I'm here to drop him off," Caroline told Marcel. "We're running out of supplies, and I don't trust anyone else with him."

He grinned. "You trust me?"

Caroline reached forward and touched his arm. "Like you would ever hurt an innocent little boy." Really, what had Marcel hurt? He had killed a witch out in the open in front of hundreds of people, if she heard correctly. And he had drained an old human woman.

"I killed his nanny. I remember how pissed off you were at that."

Caroline shrugged. "Just keep violence around him at a minimum, or I'm not going to be happy."

Marcel took Daniel from her, and Caroline kept her instincts at bay because she immediately wanted to snatch him back up. "Caroline fuming red with fury—maybe it's worth it to kill someone in front of the kid just to see what that looks like."

"Don't even try," Caroline warned, jabbing her finger into his chest. "Keep him in one piece. I'm growing really fond of that boy," she reminded him with a smile.

Marcel closed a hand over her wrist, then grinned down at her. "That was the plan," he said teasingly.

At those words, Caroline's smile vanished. She looked towards Daniel. "You know, maybe I should take him with me on that grocery trip."

But Marcel had handed over the boy to one of the female vampires that worked for him. "That's ridiculous. You're going to have a difficult time balancing your cart if he demands to be carried. Just go off to your chores and swing by when you're done. He'll be ready for you."

She was going to need to find a daycare. She was going to need to look for a nanny.

But it was not like there was a daycare in New Orleans that Marcel could not storm if he wanted, or a nanny that he could not compel.

Except—

No, that was crazy. And Marcel would know immediately the one thing that she needed to avoid. But there were coincidences in the world. And there was a way to hide the truth.

Two months before she was fulfilling every dream she had for the last few years by making love to Klaus in the alleyway within range of the St Louis Cathedral.

"I think I'm going to look for a babysitter."

"Nonsense. We can always do it for you," Marcel offered.

She shrugged. "I'll feel better if I can leave Daniel at home sometimes, with a really good babysitter." Caroline smiled. "I mean, you told me you'd take me out to a nice dinner at Arnaud's, remember?"

Marcel's grin grew. "So you're accepting."

"The moment I have my babysitter," she promised.

"Smoked pompano bourgeois, oysters Bienville, spicy gulf shrimp in Creole vegetables and then followed by veal Chantal, crab cake and crawfish O'Connor," Marcel enumerated. "I'll send a list of sitters for you to interview."

"It so happens I have a list I made up myself too," Caroline told him. She was going to need to pull the discreet messaging process that Elijah had given her, but it would be worth it if she never had to leave Daniel here again. "I'll be right back for him."

After Caroline did her grocery shopping, she pushed her cart across the parking space until she reached her rental car. Caroline parked the cart beside her car and grabbed the box of the disposable phone. She climbed into the back of the car and tore open the box, then texted the number that she had been made to memorize. S4C, she typed. Afterwards, Caroline got off the car and popped open the trunk, one by one loading her bags in.

Formula, diapers, even a few outfits for the kid. It was going to break the bank had Elijah not loaded her account up nicely before she even came here. She was not going to touch anything that Marcel had been trying to give her for Daniel.

It was going to be easier to keep him when this whole thing crumbles around them.

"I remember when this used to be a church."

Caroline immediately recognized the voice, even before she turned around. She closed her eyes, took in deep breaths.

"In fact, this entire stretch of a parking lot were the church grounds. There were quite impressive statues here, and a lot of greens," he continued.

"Then it must have been beautiful," she said softly.

Of course Elijah was right. No matter how awful they were to each other during Marcel's party, he was going to come back for her.

"Everything was far more beautiful then," he answered. "But I would not trade that with this concrete gray block of earth."

It was Klaus.

And she was Caroline.

Of course he was coming back for her.

But that was his same promise on graduation day, before he left for New Orleans again and seemingly forget she existed.

She slammed the trunk shut and turned around, and he was beautiful. Caroline drank in the sight of him like she had not just fought with him and drove him away. For his part, he slid his hands into his pants pockets as if he was insecure. But he had always been grand and possessive and so sure of himself.

Until she remembered that night he had likened what they to a schoolboy's crush.

And she had reduced their night together as a drunken girl falling too quickly in and out of love.

Wow. They were repulsive both of them.

She smiled sadly at him. Caroline walked towards him and then realized that they were out in the open. She stopped in her tracks and held his gaze. And then, conscious of whether anyone could see them in that parking lot, her awareness heightened of the CCTV cameras that were recognizing the area, Caroline turned around and stepped into the driver seat.

She started the car, and turned the vehicle to speed away. Caroline did not turn her head to look, but as she stepped on the gas pedal she allowed her sight to jump to the rearview mirror to see him standing still, exactly where she left him, watching her go.

It was two hours later when Caroline settled back into the house. She sat Daniel down on the carpet in the living room as she organized the groceries. Caroline washed the bottles and fixed some milk for the baby. And then she turned around to find Daniel jumping down from the sofa and onto the floor. Her squeal caught in her throat and he made a perfect landing. The boy scampered back up on the sofa and repeated the action.

She released a breath and calmed her nerves.

Caroline picked him up and took him to the bedroom. She placed Daniel on his back and removed his diaper. Caroline removed the cap of the wet wipes and cleaned him up. The boy watched her with his calm, blue eyes. "You are adorable," she told him. "Seriously. When your evil uncle Marcel says mean things about you, just let it come in through one ear and out the other, okay?" She leaned forward as she powdered Daniel's butt and fastened the change of diapers. "Besides," she said in a stage whisper, "you're going to see him less and less."

And then that gummy, dimpled grin. "Ma!"

Caroline blinked. It was like cold water was thrown over her.

Daniel reached up and wrapped his arms around her neck and pulled her down. She closed her eyes when all of a sudden warmth rushed through her veins. Caroline wrapped her arms around the boy and buried her nose in the crook of his neck. "Ma!" he cooed again, and Caroline had no doubt regarding what the boy called her.

She took him up in her arms as he yawned. Caroline picked up the dirty diaper and tossed it into the sink. She would clean up in the morning. She grabbed the bottle of milk from the kitchen and returned to the bedroom. Caroline climbed into bed and let Daniel lie down resting on her arm. She handed him the bottle of milk and he clutched it tightly to him and starting feeding.

She took the book on the nightstand and read, "Mama, do you love me? Yes I do, Dear One. How much? I love you more than the raven loves his treasure, more than the dog loves his tail, more than the whale loves his spout—"

She drifted off to sleep.

The noise penetrated through her subconscious, when she heard the sound of an all too familiar voice clearing his throat. Immediately she was alert, and she sat up in bed while leaning forward and to the side to shield the baby.

"Elijah!" she exclaimed. "You scared me."

Elijah leaned against the doorframe. "You should be scared," he agreed. ""My brother is driving himself to the edge, and here I find you in bed with another man."

Caroline took deep breaths as she allowed her adrenaline to pump through her bloodstream. She allowed her body to relax.

"I received your message," he told her. "Unfortunately by the time I arrived at your parking slot, I merely saw the carnage you left behind."

Klaus.

Caroline climbed out of bed and walked to Elijah. She pulled him into the living room and away from Daniel. She took a seat on the sofa and gestured for Elijah to do the same.

"I assume you reached out to me because you needed my help." Caroline nodded. Elijah added, "And as promised, I will glad to lend a hand. But perhaps we should start with the stranger in your bed."

Caroline glanced towards the bedroom. "I know I promised to get rid of the stake and get out of there, and you hate distractions. And that is a distraction in my room."

Elijah shook his head. "It will be a boring immortal life without distractions, Caroline." His voice took on a harder edge, and he leaned forward, involved, intense.

"I haven't had any success destroying that stake," Caroline confessed. "And I'm ready to admit that I need protection, Elijah." Before he opened his mouth to respond, she added, "Pulling out is not an option. I'm close to the stake. I can get my hands on it. That isn't why I need you."

"Go on," Elijah said. His gaze moved towards the bedroom.

"I need your sister, because I think my son is in danger."

"Your son," Elijah repeated. He stood up and stepped forward. "What does Marcel have to do with this?" Caroline rushed and placed herself between the bedroom door and Elijah. "What are you talking about?"

Caroline placed a hand on Elijah's chest. She was stupid. Again. This was an Original and she was nothing. But Daniel was her son now, and she dared anyone to deny that.

"Elijah, stop," Caroline pressed. "Please."

"Let me see the boy, Caroline," he told her.

And suddenly she was afraid. For the first time since he showed up in her room to take her inside all this, where everything she had first been afraid of roamed free and powerful. Even standing with Marcel in a room of his cronies, unsure of whether or not he knew more about he allowed.

"Don't hurt him, Elijah."

And she was begging.

"Step away from the door, Caroline."

She shook her head. "Over my dead body. Let's see how you spend the rest of your life once Klaus finds out you killed me," she dared him.

He frowned in confusion. His face softened. "I think I'm safe," he told her, "because I don't have plans of hurting the child." Elijah placed his hands on her shoulders. "You have accomplished far more than I imagined, Caroline, when I brought you here. But come," he said, gently moving her to the side, "let me see my nephew."

tbc


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: **I truly appreciate your thoughts. Thank you so much!

**Part 4**

**CAROLINE**

The words were ridiculous, and summoned to her head immediately visions—dreams?—of Klaus Mikaelson, the big bad villain that she had more than once referred to as being such a terrible creature, morphing into the World's Greatest Dad—which in her head was really a soccer uniform-wearing spatula wielding handyman, complete with a utility belt equipped with a baby bottle strapped around his waist. Caroline giggle at the thought, preposterous as it was. But Elijah's face was grim, and he regarded her with his straight, somber gaze as she worked the laughter out of her system. Her mirth faded, and as she chuckled the last few remaining threads, slow, seeping realization dawned on her.

"You've got to be kidding me," Caroline said tonelessly.

Still Elijah was silent, and she tamped down the urge to reach for him and shake him.

"You're not kidding me," she concluded.

It was like everything was louder in the silence. She was frozen on the spot. On one hand Daniel was asleep, and Elijah was a thousand time more powerful than her. And her brain restlessly flitted here and there processing the information.

Like she really needed to protect Daniel from his own _uncle._

And the dread that came—the same dread that kept her these two months of being Daniel's only real caretaker from thinking of him as her own. She absolutely dreaded the thought that one day his real parents would show up—his mother that abandoned him—and take him back. And now, just after he called her mom, just after she verbalized the acceptance of his importance to her, his _family _knows.

And most selfishly, Caroline was paralyzed by pieces of her heart fracturing and falling down the pit of her stomach. She could run down the impossibilities in order to prolong this.

Finn was dead; so was Kol. Dead long before they could have produced any spawn this young and this mortal. And like them all, Rebekah was as infertile was salted earth.

Klaus procreated. All the while professing he fancied her, that he would show her everything the world had to offer. That child sleeping in her bed, the one she bathed and kissed and loved now admittedly and loudly with her entire being—

She watched as time slowed down in her world, as Elijah stepped into her bedroom and she remained by the doorway. As he leaned down by the bed, and reached a steady hand to brush the boy's now too-long hair from his face, Caroline stayed away. She watched as Elijah studied the child, and then tentatively touched the nape of Daniel's neck, where his birthmark was.

He looked up at her, and Caroline felt the knot in her throat when he told her, "You've been taking care of him." She nodded, telling herself not to give much more than she was asked. Not in this. But she was always going to lose. "Thank you."

And then, Caroline sat down on the edge of her bed. She could pack everything that she had bought for him. It would fit in a baby bag, but maybe if she boxed the rest someone could pick them up. Daniel liked the elephant that they picked up in the park. Abruptly she stood and checked the laundry basket in case he had mistakenly deposited it there.

He found her in the living room rooting under the couch. Caroline saw the small stuffed elephant underneath and she reached for it and held it up. She pulled the baby bag from the back of the closet and carried it back to the sofa.

"Caroline, we should talk," he told her quietly.

And she was breathless when she responded, "Talk away. If you don't mind, I'm going to make sure everything's in order. I mean, you probably have nothing for a kid in your house."

"Caroline," he repeated. She looked towards him, and he gestured to the sofa. "Sit down."

And so slowly she sank to the seat. Caroline licked her lips. And then she could not help the anger and the tears bubbling inside her. "What the hell, Elijah?" she snapped. Elijah frowned, then shook his head as if he did not understand. "I said, what the hell! We were supposed to be partners. You never told me this."

"I told you to be ready for sudden changes," he said quietly. When Caroline rolled her eyes, Elijah held up a hand. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "Will you believe me if I told you I didn't know?"

"No."

"I did not know," he said again. "I had my suspicions of course. Klaus was nowhere until it was over. I was the one that gathered what remains could have been the child's, but the werewolves had done their damage and there was nothing but blood and cloth and bones and flesh." He sighed. "I was the one who buried everything, because my brother has come down a long road to lose himself again."

Sometimes she wondered if Elijah did not realize how much he took away with what he gave. "You can't manipulate Klaus into redemption. You could have told him that there was a possibility that his baby survived. He could have searched."

"He was nowhere to be found," Elijah insisted firmly. "Nowhere. And I would not allow a green girl like you to tell me where I made a mistake. I was the one that stayed around for the safety of that child, Caroline, while Niklaus vanished for days on end." Caroline drew her fingers through her hair. "But I knew Marcel from the stories of the witches who work with me. He would have found out. I would not have been surprised if he orchestrated that attack on—" Abruptly, he cut himself off.

And then, just because it did not hurt enough, she had to ask. "Who's the mother, Elijah?"

And then for the first time since his discovery, Elijah looked at her with some sympathy. "You know it doesn't matter, don't you, in the grand scheme of things, in what my brother wants with you?"

But her eyes were filled to the brim now, and she almost begged him to compel away the hurt. There was a way to do that, but she had seen the havoc it wrought, so today she swore she was going to be brave and bear it. "And you know that telling me that doesn't matter either."

"Then I want Niklaus to tell you."

And God, she wanted that, if only she could glare at him and release this tension building up on her shoulders, so she could throw some hurtful words at him that could crack away at a tiny bit of the numbing pain that had since taken the space of her heart. "You know I can't do that."

His eyes narrowed. "Caroline, no matter what we had agreed to do, we already have the best out of what we needed from Marcel. You don't need to take this further."

"I want to talk to Klaus," she decided. "But Marcel has the stake. I want to meet Klaus when I know there is nothing that I need to be afraid of." Caroline shrugged. "I had no way of getting to the stake since they moved it from the library to Marcel's bedroom. I couldn't really snatch it up and expect no one to suspect me when I return."

Elijah leaned back on the sofa and eyed her. "So what's the plan, Caroline? You go to his bedroom and grab the stake?"

She stood up, and started pacing as she thought aloud. When she glanced at Elijah, she could not help but swell at the admiration he saw in his eyes. She may be young and green, like he said, but she would show him she was far more impressive than anyone thought at first glance. Caroline loved being a vampire. She would never have been this courageous before she turned. "I always hesitated at the thought of never being able to go back," she confessed.

"I never suspected. What is it that these modern psychologists call it?" Elijah murmured. "Stockholm syndrome."

Caroline gasped in surprise. "No, are you kidding! I mean, I didn't want to cut off all ties with Marcel by stealing the stake and knowing I couldn't go back. None of you could have penetrated into his inner circle, could have heard his plans, could have kept tabs on him like I did. I always knew I was more valuable in there than out here."

"That is ridiculous!" was his quick reply.

And that warmed her, that quick denial. "And then Daniel arrived, and I didn't want Marcel coming after us and taking him away."

"That, Caroline, is impossible now." He stood and spoke resolutely, "Marcel will put his hands on a Mikaelson over my dead, burning body." His lips curved. "And then he would need to deal with Rebekah and Klaus."

Caroline nodded. "I'm not afraid anymore. I don't need to go back." She walked over to the drawer and then produced a stake.

At the sight of it, Elijah's brows arched. "That is not a white oak stake."

"Close enough," she said to him, "I mean you and your family would recognize it on sight, but many of the vampires who are not you can make the initial mistake. I'll pull a bait and switch on Marcel, and buy enough time to leave that house intact."

"So you'll waltz in and pull this—" Elijah's face curled a bit in the effort to use the term, "—bait and switch."

"You have to understand, Elijah, as awesome as I am, those guys are badass—ranging from fifty to a hundred fifty years older than me."

"I'm coming with you," he decided.

Caroline grinned. "You'll be our third wheel?" She shook her head. "Everyone has an understandable wariness of your family, Elijah. And I need to make my way safely to Marcel's bedside table. You're only going to make that impossible." She glanced back towards the bedroom. "But I'm going to need your sister to babysit tonight. This ends tonight."

"I do not see Rebekah babysitting so you can go out on a date." He shook his head emphatically. "No, Caroline, not even for a long lost nephew."

Caroline crossed her arms in front of her, then pushed, "Not even if I tell you that today more than a dozen werewolves surrounded us in the park, trying to get Daniel's attention? I think Klaus would find that five hundred years of sleep would not be enough to make up for losing his son twice, Elijah."

There was a flicker in Elijah's expression, one that immediately intrigued her. Caroline reached forward and grabbed the other vampire's arm.

"What you fail to realize, Caroline, is that there is a reason that Niklaus hasn't burned down Louisiana this last year and a half."

Caroline shook her head. Her mother had been gone just about that long, and Mystic Falls needed to be extraordinarily thankful to Matt, Bonnie and Elena for keeping her from killing every last human there in her grief. She had always known that Mystic Falls would be the death of her mother, and merely agreed to leave her there because there was no talking the sheriff out of her responsibility to the town. The petty thief that managed to off Liz—and it was ridiculous even to her because Liz that survived the most evil supernatural creatures in Mystic Falls—Caroline had dispatched with a swift, vicious snap of his neck while Taylor Swift blasted from her car stereo.

What more of a father losing a son?

"Niklaus has no love for his child."

**KLAUS**

"Nik."

At the sound of the voice, tremulous and whisper-soft, Klaus grasped the phone to his ear in a viselike grip. "Bekah," he answered. When his phone rang with her name flashing on the screen, he had debated over whether to even answer. Still, there were only the three of them left, and remembering the last words they hurled at each other, Klaus knew Rebekah would not have contacted him voluntarily for at least fifty years due to the hurt he caused.

"Do you remember when you told me not to beg for your help when I am sick and dying?"

Her voice was faint, growing fainter. Klaus sat up straight and demanded, "Where are you, Bekah?"

There was silence, and a sobbing moan in the background. "I'm not calling to beg you, Nik, not for me. I know you'll laugh in my face."

"What the hell happened?" Klaus sped out of the house as he waited for his sister. "Where, Bekah?"

Klaus had expected her to be in Mystic Falls, or in Chicago, or in New York. His sister quickly rambled off an address close by, and within seconds Klaus stood at the front door of a small house. His gaze flickered to the broken doorknob, and pushed open the door to find the blood streaks on the walls. The living room had turned over into itself, with the couch pushed to the corridor as if to bar away an intruder. At the foot of the stairs was an immobile man. Klaus sniffed the air and recognized the putrid scent of a werewolf.

"Good girl," he whispered.

His sister appeared in the landing, grasping at the wall, her face bloodied with what Klaus knew now to be blood from the home invader. Rebekah clutched at her arm, and finally the frantic, weak call made sense to him. "Calm down, Bekah. All the werewolf bite will do is harm you for a few hours. You are hardly dying."

He caught sight of another fallen man at the top of the steps.

"I've killed six of them, Nik. The werewolf bite has not taken me down," was his sister's response. Rebekah unsteadily rushed down the steps.

Klaus caught his sister in his arms when she reached the bottom. "I would ask you what you're doing in New Orleans, sister, if I did not know you were utterly dependent on me and cannot live a separate life."

"Shut up, Nik," Rebekah said softly. She leaned forward, and whispered into his ear, "It was a werewolf attack, clean, organized like a pack. They may still be here. Go to the bedroom, Nik. I'll keep any stragglers at bay."

Klaus frowned at the words. He turned and looked around him with a discerning assessment. And that was when he noticed the cropped jacket hanging on the back of the sofa, the heels abandoned by the corridor near the kitchen as if the owner had kicked off the shoes to pad comfortably barefoot in her home. He saw the knocked down photo frame with its broken glass sitting on the floor.

A mother and daughter beaming at the camera on the day of high school graduation.

Klaus sped to the bedroom and found her on the foot of the bed. "Caroline," he said gently. She pushed him away, weakly grasping the coverlet from the bed to pull herself up only to pull it away. He checked the state she was in, and his gut clenched at the sight of the festering open wound, worse still than Tyler's bite, more horrific than the site of the wound he himself had given her. "You are very prone to this, sweetheart. I think I might have to stock up some of my blood in your fridge."

The morbid humor was not lost on her, and she groaned at the pain that was caused by even trying to smile. "I need to go," she pleaded.

"First you need my blood. You know how this works, Caroline," he told her, pressing his wrist to her lips.

She turned her head. "You can't fix everything like this."

He pulled her up against him, "It's how I start." Like it was his fault. He certainly was not the one who waltzed into town and started with his enemy, not the one who sought him out to send him on a tailspin of love and loss and longing. But this was not the time to argue, not when all he wanted was to save her.

And later to hunt down every last one of the wolves who dared to hurt her in her own home.

Caroline tried to bite, but she was too far gone to break skin. Klaus brought his wet wrist to his mouth and tore in, then offered the blood to her. He was concerned he was too late when she merely allowed the blood to dribble down her throat. "Is that what you call feeding now, love? Put some life behind it. You have so much to live for."

She started to push away once again, successfully making it to her feet and she staggered towards the door.

"You have not nearly had enough," Klaus advised.

She pulled to door open and Klaus caught her by the waist. "I need to find him," she gasped. Klaus glared down at the steps, where her sister looked up at them. "Rebekah, did Elijah make it back?"

Klaus watched the emotions war on his sister's face, and he cursed under his breath. Once again, the acquaintances that they were, his own siblings were embroiled in his life without keeping him apprised. When Rebekah shook her head. Caroline struggled in his arms. Klaus tightened his grip on her. "Elijah has it under control," he assured her firmly.

And then she slowed, weakened. "I need to find Daniel," she murmured. He did not even recognize the name, wondered if she truly did and what it meant to him. "Klaus, please."

Klaus took her up into his arms and laid her down on the bed, sitting beside her. Caroline looked up at him. She drifted off to sleep as her body struggled to heal from the toxic bite with the little of his blood in her. As her eyelids pulled down, Klaus brought his newly healed wrist up to his mouth and reopened the wound, then held it over her mouth where, like a sleeping child, she grasped at his limb and suckled. He watched as the wound on her neck slowly healed itself.

When Klaus was certain that she was on her way back to health, he made his way down the steps again, ignoring the fallen werewolves littering the floor.

"I'll compel for a clean up before she wakes up," Rebekah muttered as she paced.

Klaus looked at his sister, a little worse of wear, her clothes stained red with blood, her hair in disarray, walking back and forth, never far from the space between the door and the stairs leading up to Caroline's room. "Sister," he called her. Rebekah looked up at him with a hint of fear in her eyes. Klaus licked his lips. "For most of my life I tolerated you, Bekah, because you were there." Rebekah paused in her pacing and stared at him. "Tonight out of nowhere, after I took from you what you wanted most in the world, you were right where I did not know I needed you." And then she caught her breath when Klaus strode towards her and wrapped his arms around her. "Thank you."

Tears filled her eyes. "Don't thank me," she whispered brokenly. "I've failed you more than you know, Nik."

He took her shoulders by his hands and then held her within arm's length, his gaze avidly searching her face. "You kept her alive. You called me to keep her alive. Any falling out between us is forgotten, Bekah."

Rebekah burst into tears. She covered her face with her hands. Klaus smiled grimly, waited for the youngest to spill. There was nothing that broke Rebekah's will more than genuine appreciation from her brothers.

Finally, Rebekah dropped her hands and sniffled. "Elijah brought me here to protect them, Nik."

_Them._

"But there were too many of them. I'd let Caroline in and we were celebrating, drinking champage," Rebekah narrated. Klaus' eyes scanned the room and eyed the kitchen island, putting together the images of Caroline coming home, kicking off her heels and pouring flutes of champagne. Two glasses of champage were shattered on the floor. "She finally got the stake from Marcel, the one that could kill us. She was going to give you a call, Nik."

The phone he found crushed, possibly under a boot, right in the living room close to the fireplace.

"We threw the stake into the fire." Rebekah's pause gave him a chill. "That was when they came for him."

"Him," he finally whispered.

Rebekah's big gaze turned to him. "The werewolves came for your son, Nik," Rebekah filled in, stunning him into silence. "Caroline's been taking care of your son." Rebakah smiled gently. "He calls her ma."

The ringing phone interrupted them, and Rebekah made a move to answer the call. Klaus stopped her, and waited for the call to go into voicemail.

There was that chuckle. Klaus knew that chuckle. "So no more pretensions then? I see you've taken something from me, Caroline, right after I gave you Daniel. Well, I hope you enjoy the visit from the grandparents. They certainly don't appreciate a heathen vampire raising the next alpha of the Original pack." A pause. "Try running, Caroline. There is no corner of the earth where they cannot smell you and hunt you down like the natural prey that you are."

The call dropped after the message was saved. Klaus looked at Rebekah in confusion.

"That cannot be," Rebekah gasped. "Your son cannot be part of the Original pack, Nik. Not unless-" Rebekah's eyes widened. "That family is legendary for their fortitude and their savageness in the face of the enemy, their possessive familial bonds. Even if Elijah tracks down that child, they will never leave us alone, Nik."

Klaus heard the tiny howling sound from outside the house. He held up a finger to silence Rebekah. He strode to the door and pulled it open. Before he stepped outside, he glanced at her. Immediately Rebekah nodded to communicate what she already understood.

"Ba careful," she called out to him.

Klaus stepped out into the cool night air and looked around. The moon shone bright outside, and the howling grew louder. He looked up and noted the crescent shape of the moon, and knew immediately that if this was a werewolf it would be part of the legendary pack. No other werewolves could turn outside the full moon.

And then he saw it, running across the lawn, creating a perimeter around the house. It was a white gold wolf, and despite its size Klaus recognized it for a pup. The wolf, with its glowing coat, was menacing under the moonlight. Klaus looked out towards the street and found four young men circling the house, reluctant to come closer as the wolf guarded the property.

Klaus allowed his Hybrid to emerge, transitioning easily to a yellow-eyed vampire and baring his fangs. He sped towards one and brought him down by snapping his neck. Klaus flashed to another and bit, drawing the blood until his heart stopped. He saw the golden wolf pup pause in his rounds, then start chasing after one. Klaus took on the fourth and dispensed of him as easily.

While the wolf pup chased the werewolf in its human form, Klaus watched with pride. He watched as the wolf leapt into the air beautifully and land on the back of the intruder, then bring the man down to the ground. Klaus stopped before the wolf and stroked the golden fur. "Good boy," he murmured gently. "Now go home."

The golden wolf sprinted away from Klaus. "You didn't really think I would let an innocent kid have such a worthless first kill, did you?" Klaus knelt down on the street and, amidst the screams of the man, buried his fangs into his neck.

Klaus walked back towards the house and found the wolf sitting on the welcome mat. He stopped and stared at the wolf, then studied him. He held out his hand, and the wolf tentatively walked towards him and sniffed his hand. With his free hand, Klaus took a picture of the wolf and sent Elijah a message. 'Come back. Daniel is here.'

The wolf, seemingly satisfied that Klaus was harmless to who he cared for, climbed on Klaus' lap. He stroked the thick white-golden fur until the wolf drifted to sleep. Klaus wiped his mouth of his sleeve.

"It's good to see you, Daniel," Klaus said softly as the wolf changed form, and he sat on the lawn cradling a naked blonde child. He grunted as he stood, taking Daniel with him as the baby shifted and laid a heavy head on his shoulder. Daniel's breath was fast and steady against his neck, a sign of the boy's exertion. The last time he felt any sign of life from his son, he was nothing but a heartbeat against his palm. "It's been a while."

tbc


	5. Chapter 5

**Part 5**

**KLAUS**

It was an odd unsettling feeling, this sinking in his stomach. Of the thousand years of his life Klaus had experienced a multitude of highs and lows, but never this slow sensation of something taking over him. The boy's weight was slight in his arms, because really he was not even two. Klaus had known of his existence for only about an hour now.

And still, he settled into his body like he was home.

Klaus passed by his sister shoving broken crap into a large garbage bucket. He shifted Daniel easily in his arms and picked out a broken picture frame with a poorly focused capture of Daniel and Caroline in the carousel. Klaus shook away the broken glass and salvaged the picture, placing it on top of the table as he made his way up the stairs.

His first stop was to check in on Caroline. He swung the door open and peered inside to find her still deeply asleep as her body healed itself. Klaus turned to the next room and opened the door, finding a bathroom instead of what he was searching for.

"You don't have a room, do you, kid?" And before he could exercise some control over himself, Klaus found himself thinking up a room for the child when really there was no place in his life for one. Still lugging the half-awake child in his arms, Klaus made his way downstairs just in time for the door the open.

In a split second Rebekah was standing right in front of the door.

To his surprise, his own hand came to a protective rest on Daniel's back.

His guard relaxed when Elijah stepped into the house. Klaus waited for Elijah to briefly take in his sister's appearance after the attack in the house. When finally Elijah looked up to acknowledge him, Klaus said sharply, "You have a lot that you've kept secret from me, brother."

"And I intend to disclose it all, Niklaus, but first let us see to getting my nephew clothed." Elijah then walked into the kitchen and emerged with a bag that looked worse for wear. He handed it to Rebekah. "Caroline keeps a change of clothes in the second pocket, and formula in the blue plastic containers at the sides."

For a brief second Klaus was almost jealous. Because Elijah was part of something so intimate; because Elijah knew more. Because when she was half-conscious all she could ask about apart from a child was his own brother.

"Why is she here, Elijah?" he asked.

And then Rebekah reached for Daniel. Klaus released the child, and with a gentle coo from Rebekah and the warm gaze that Elijah bestowed on them he recognized that Elijah had achieved what he wanted from New Orleans. He wanted a family, and the three of them stood under the same roof now, standing as one to care for the child.

Rebekah took the child and the bag up the stairs to care for him, and Klaus narrowed his eyes at the pride and affection that Elijah had at the simple action.

"You wanted her here, did you not?"

"Not if I knew nothing, not if I couldn't protect her," was the quick reply.

"Most of the time even I could not keep track of you, Niklaus, and I knew how powerful Marcel has become. I needed you back," Elijah admitted. "And if I, whom among anyone still walking on this earth has had the longest connection to you, cannot even keep you focused on the path, then I needed someone else."

"You came to her," Klaus concluded.

It was right around that time, before she showed up in New Orleans glowing under the yellow lights of the artists' alley, that he came to her dorm to find it abandoned. It was that absence that led him to the subject of his painting the night he lost himself inside her.

"I came to her because I needed someone who would do whatever it would take to bring you back."

And she came. She was right here, right on Marcel's arm, surrounded by the most hostile and territorial vampires ever created.

"Why?"

_Remember I love you, always just you._

"I think that is a question that only Caroline can answer for you, Niklaus, if she has not done so already."

Klaus shook his head. "And the child-" It was so hard to refer to him as his own son. He was still so unused to it. "Daniel? It's impossible. He was dead. Hayley said so. You told me you buried it with your own hands."

"The girl was half-unconscious from the attack and the loss of blood from the birth in the middle of nowhere. I picked up remains surrounding her and buried them. I was not going to put that on you, Niklaus. Your son was dead, and like always no one knew where to find you."

Child's laughter burst through the thin walls. Klaus turned towards the sound. His voice dropped to a whisper, "Was Marcel raising my son?"

"From what I could glean since Caroline came home with Daniel, Niklaus, I can tell you that Marcel had been supporting your child. Who it was that took him on the day he was born—whether they were vampires who were seeking leverage against you, werewolves that were looking to fulfill their own prophecy, or even witches that could not allow the child of powerful creatures from two distinct original lines—we do not know."

Klaus turned around and walked out and towards where Rebekah was sitting on the bed, playing peek-a-boo with his son, an almost human, carefree grin on her face. It was the very first time he had seen his own sister come this close to what she wanted the most in the world.

Elijah followed closely behind him, and Klaus knew he was looking at the exact same picture. "What we do know is that since Caroline had Daniel it has been a constant stream of threats, of wolves following them, trying to take Daniel, and tonight this."

"The child is family, Niklaus," Elijah said. "We have not welcomed anyone into the family in the last thousand years and we may never do so again. Know that every last one of us will die before any hurt befalls your son."

Klaus grinned at his brother. "Good thing you're immortal then, and Caroline's destroyed the last piece of stake that can harm us, brother."

"Has she?" Elijah murmured. "Smart girl." He cleared his throat. "That was the last obstacle before she could extricate herself from your mentee. I guess then there is no doubt that we are waging war on Marcel and his vampires."

Klaus still remembered that voicemail, eerie as it was, and his hands fisted at his sides. "He knew what he was unleashing on Caroline the moment she took Daniel." And that was before she stole and destroyed the stake. His skin crawled at the thought that all along Caroline was inside Marcel's house, in Marcel's protection, surrounded by Marcel's men, and it was either that Marcel knew that she was somehow linked inextricably to Klaus or he just found it an effective way to rid himself of the threat of the Original wolves if he handed the child to another caregiver.

Rebekah waved the two of them into the room, and Klaus stepped aside when Elijah eagerly walked into the room and sat on the bed as well. Klaus nodded to his sister but thought better of completing the ridiculous portrait their image would lend themselves to. Not even when they were children was he truly part of the family, with only half of his blood truly shared with them.

Instead Klaus turned on his heel and stepped into Caroline's bedroom. She was stretching in bed already, her eyes half-lidded as her gaze rested on him. For a moment she had the sweetest smile, and Klaus smiled back. If only they had another morning left, this would have been the perfect way to cap his thousand years.

And then suddenly her smile faded as she realized that this was no dream. Caroline bolted up on the bed. "Daniel!"

He sat on the bed beside her and grabbed her hands. "Caroline," he said firmly, so that she would look into his eyes, "he is safe. He is melting the hearts of two old vampires, right in the next room."

At this, she calmed. Hearing the loud laughter from outside the room, Caroline smiled. "I'm glad they're enjoying each other's company. Your son is an entertainer, you know."

It was the easy way the words dropped from her tongue, maybe, but the phrase did not seem so odd anymore. "An entertainer?" His eyebrow arched. "That might be something he got from me."

She threw her head back and laughed, and Klaus' grin grew larger. When the mirth faded, Caroline shook her head. He reached forward tentatively, resting a hand on hers.

"Elijah told me about your recruitment into this mess. Why did you do it?"

Her eyes searched his, as if trying to see if the question was real, if he truly did not know, if he just did not believe it. "I didn't want you getting hurt out here," she said matter-of-factly.

"Why?"

And he bloody well knew why, knew it like he remembered every breath against his ear, every grip, every whisper.

"Because I'm in love with you, Klaus." And it was exactly what she had said then, in the golden glow that he could not forget in a thousand more years. "I'm so in love with you that I hate you sometimes. You make me so afraid."

Klaus leaned forward and grasped the nape of her neck, then brought his mouth over hers, murmured low in his throat when he felt her fingers bury into his hair deepening the kiss. He raised his head and looked into her eyes. "You will never need to be afraid of me," he assured her. "Believe me, sweetheart, I knew the first moment I laid eyes on you that you were too good for me. If I was ever so lucky to have you, I swore you were going to be the center of my universe."

She forced that smile and he recognized it. "Then where were you for the last two years, Klaus," she said, keeping her voice light, "apart from procreating?"

"Love, have you ever wondered why Elijah has been the one involved with Daniel, where I was when he talked about being the only one there?" Caroline shook her head. "Even when you did not know I was there, when your mom was hurt, when you were mourning, I was always behind you."

Perhaps it was the sudden rush of those difficult memories, but that was when she leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulder. It had been all that he could do to control himself from wrapping himself around her all those nights she had cried herself to sleep after she buried her mother, all that he could do to keep himself from taking her away when she was at her most vulnerable.

"You were right when you called me a terrible person, Caroline. These last two years proved it. I care more about you than I cared about my own son."

She pulled away and those shining eyes held more power over him than anything in the world. "He's a beautiful baby. You can't be that way anymore."

"I won't," he promised, and he hoped whatever power there was that would assist him in his redemption would allow him to keep his promise.

And it was only natural that he would lie down on her bed and she would rest her head on his arm, curled up at his side. Caroline rested her fingers on his shirt. He smiled when she brushed a kiss on his chest. "Tell me about Daniel's mother."

"You are his mother," he said gently, too quickly. But he should have prepared for this question. It was always going to be asked. "He has not known anyone but you. Certainly not the woman who gave birth to him."

"That's not fair, Klaus."

It wouldn't be fair to you.

She sat up on the bed and immediately he felt the coldness from the vacant spot she left on the bed. "Who is it?"

"It was Hayley."

And he sat up, frozen, and watched as Caroline buried her face in her palms. Klaus placed a hand on her back and was happy that she did not jerk away. Her back trembled underneath his hand. He waited, keeping silent.

When finally, she turned to him, her tearstreaked face mostly dried, her eyes red-rimmed, Caroline told him, "As much as I hated her, I can't take away from her what I found with Daniel. You have to tell her, Klaus."

**CAROLINE**

She leaned over to look at the special creation, and Klaus peered up at her. "You're blocking the sun, Caroline."

He reached up with his charcoal-stained fingers and pushed back a waterfall of her blonde hair behind her ear. Caroline squealed and moved away. "Keep your disgusting hands off my hair!"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "I distinctly remember the exact opposite instruction not long ago, love."

Caroline's jaw dropped. Her mouth hanging, she darted her gaze from Klaus to Rebekah and then to Elijah. To his credit Elijah kept a poker face on while Rebekah winced.

"It's your fault, sweetheart." Klaus winked. "Next time don't try to bait me. Or bait me in private because I will definitely bite."

She flushed, wondering if she needed to protect Daniel's delicate ears from that kind of talk. Caroline knelt beside Klaus and looked at the drawing on his sketchbook, almost completed now. "He's very handsome." She turned and dropped a kiss on Klaus' mouth, "Just like his father."

"You know, Caroline, this would look better with you in the picture."

"It's perfect just the way it is," Caroline assured him.

Daniel stood from his position on the grass and ran towards her, launching himself towards her and jumping up. Caroline caught him and fell back from the weight that hurtled towards her, back towards Klaus who dropped the sketchbook and the charcoal pencil and whose arms wrapped around her waist.

"Daniel, my boy, playing too rough today, are we?" Klaus called out. He reached forward and grabbed Daniel by wrapping an arm around the kid's waist and lifting him easily, earning giggles of delight as the kid felt like he was flying in the air.

It was the same park where they had once been surrounded before. Caroline realized the werewolves that she had once thought were a threat had been the pack to which Daniel belonged. To any human that saw them, they appeared like quite the tight family, without realizing that there were three Original vampires there to shield against Marcel and his vampires.

"Ma!" Daniel called out loud, waving his arms in the air, flailing for Caroline. "Save me!"

And Klaus laughed out loud. "Save you?"

Caroline stood and snatched Daniel up and out of Klaus' grasp. Daniel wrapped his arms tightly around Caroline's neck as Caroline ran across the park. When she reached the edge of the park, Caroline stopped.

Her arms unconsciously tightened around Daniel. "Hayley," she said.

The dark-haired werewolf stared at the little boy in Caroline's arms. "Is that my son?" Caroline nodded. Hayley stepped forward, closer to Caroline and Daniel, and touched the little boy. "Klaus told me you convinced him to call me about him. Thank you."

Caroline cleared her throat. The plan was that she would at least have Klaus for some support when Hayley finally saw Daniel for the first time.

"Daniel... that's his name, right?"

And suddenly Caroline pitied Hayley, because she never even had the chance to name her own baby. She nodded. "I think it suits him," Caroline added.

"It does," mumbled Hayley thoughtfully. "Come on, Daniel. I'm your mommy."

And it was a little painful to hear that, even when all along she kept her head level, knew in her heart and her mind that someone else gave birth to Daniel.

"Come to mommy, Daniel." Hayley reached forward and placed her hands under Daniel's arms to extricate him from Caroline.

"Don't force him," Caroline cautioned as she felt Daniel's breathing grow faster and his arms go tighter. "Daniel-"

The little boy squirmed in her arms and Caroline gasped out loud when he jumped, away from Hayley and transformed easily into a golden white wolf pup at her feet, howling at Hayley until Hayley, with wide eyes, backed away by a foot. "Oh my God! It's true."

Caroline turned around and saw that about half a dozen pairs of eyes were trained on them and what had just transpired. She had seen Tyler transition more than once, watched the pain and the contortion and the general ugliness that came along with it. Not once had she since any werewolf transform as smoothly as if it was jumping into another skin. By the looks of those watching them in fascination, Daniel had just answered many questions.

Hayley met Caroline's worried gaze. She declared, "This arrangement won't work. Tell Klaus I want my son."

Caroline barely blinked and then Klaus was standing beside her, slightly ahead of her. "Tell me yourself, Hayley. You don't get Daniel full-time. And you have Caroline to thank that you're seeing your son at all."

Caroline watched the seething passion in Hayley as she looked down at Daniel, then back at Klaus. "Look at him! He is the very creature that my family has prophesied—the blood of the original Alpha, Klaus. Through him, my bloodline will thrive again in Louisiana and overrun these lands."

"You want Daniel as bait for your family to want to take you," Klaus surmised.

"And you want your son to hold over Elijah," Hayley bit back. "That is what this has always been about, Klaus. This was always about power and how much of it that baby brings to the table."

Klaus' lips thinned. "That's why neither of us deserves Daniel, Hayley. Leave him to Caroline. She loves him."

"Everyone saw!" Hayley pressed. "By noon, every type of supernatural will be trying to get to Daniel. My family can protect him better than anyone else can. Give him to me."

"No!" Caroline finally bit out. She had had enough of the argument, of the rationale that was so ridiculous on both their parts. She knelt down beside the wolf and calmed him with strokes down his neck. Hearing Hayley, finally, Caroline could decide for herself, and she did not care how many people would judge her for her presumption. "You don't get to touch my son again. Get out of here, Hayley."

tbc


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: **Appreciate the feedback, guys.

**Part 6**

**CAROLINE**

Her coat was snug and warm. It was unnecessary really. The night was warm enough around these parts. What she should have remembered was an umbrella, she thought, walking down the moist street. Here and there were puddles where the spread of the cement mixture was laid out unevenly. The drizzle was unpredictable. Thankfully enough she was close to her destination and needed not fear the rain.

These were empty streets. They felt empty. For the longest days she had never felt so alone. Marcel had vampires watching over her almost since the day she arrived, and she always felt those strange watchful gazes of the wolves the day she took Daniel home.

The coil in her belly grew tight. Any time she remembered Daniel now, and the joy he brought, she remembered Hayley's dark eyes and the look on her face out there in the park.

Caroline paused outside the old, nondescript door. She reached up a hand and grasped the large brass knocker and gave a couple of rapid knocks. When she heard the door unlock from within, she pushed the door open and found herself on the top step of a stairwell, assailed by the pungent scent of blood and liquor, her senses overwhelmed by the loud music that thrummed vibrations on her cheeks and eyelids, so loud was it, and completely captured her ears.

A few minutes or so and she would have adjusted, her vampire senses heightening and dimming enough in places where she would be able to control the input she received. She walked down the steps as her hearing adjusted. The smell of blood made her throat tickle, but it had been a mere few days since Klaus fed his blood to her. She never truly craved human blood a week or two after tasting Klaus, thought of it more as nourishment than anything.

Caroline fully expected to be jumped. She had a stake in her purse for just that small measure of security, yet never assumed it would completely protect her walking into a den this way. Especially not Sendak. Not Marcel's Sendak. This was where the wild things are, and she was fully aware of what she was challenging being there.

Yet aside from the few cautious glances thrown her way by a half dozen vampires at the bar, the rest of the creatures surrounding her were either indifferent or warm.

Marcel had not placed a purse on her head. She realized, Marcel had told no one save his inner circle that she had betrayed him.

For a minute the thought warmed her until she remembered the attack in her home that left it in shambles, requiring her to move herself and Daniel temporarily into Klaus' house. He had known about the danger and the certain death he was sending both of them to when he handed Daniel over to her, with not so much as a warning. She was sure that was his payback.

Then again if he wanted her dead she would be right where she stood.

Sometimes it was so obvious that Marcel was mentored by Klaus. His actions were most often completely confusing, in reverse of his words or intentions. If they both did not want the same metaphorical crown, Caroline was sure they would be the best of friends and they would be completely terrifying working together.

Caroline saw him sitting at the bar, somewhat hunched over, but knew that he knew she was there. His relaxed slouch grew tense and even though many of those that surrounded him had already turned to watch her walk into the music bar, he was still stubbornly focused on the drink in front of him.

She had once been an insecure, neurotic, control freak. The last two years exposed to Klaus may have generally lowered, if not completely eradicated her insecurity, but she was still a ball of nerves that wanted to control the world. Her core personality was going to be the death of her, again, she thought, standing in the center of an establishment of supernatural creatures approaching someone she had just recently betrayed. The old Caroline would have laid out the plan on a storyboard and realized that should she make it out of here alive she was pretty sure she was going to end up in trouble still.

She was only a few feet away from Marcel when he jumped from his seat and jogged to the stage, then caught the mic tossed to him. Caroline turned towards the stage and the people converged in front of her to get a closer look. She stifled a grin as the drumbeat rose and Marcel made a show of shaking his hips, to the eruption of squeals from a handful of the female audience and the guffaws of the male.

These were his friends, all around her. And this was why he had the upper hand against someone far older and stronger than he. It made it so much easier for him to learn secrets, kept him from wallowing in times of failure and most of all, he had love in droves.

Marcel basked in the applause that followed his song. Finally, he focused his gaze on her and raised his eyebrows. Caroline swallowed. It was their first confrontation after the date, a blur in her memory really in the haste and the hyperfocus on stealing and destroying the white oak stake.

Marcel grinned at those that surrounded him, and patted backs and shook hands as he made his way to her. "There's my little thief." When he stopped beside her, Caroline felt his hand rest on the small of her back as he led her to a private area of the bar.

"I'm surprised to see you here, Caroline," he said in greeting.

She scanned his face, trying to get more from his expression that what she was seeing then. "Did you expect me to be dead by now?"

"Look," he said, running his palm over the close shave of his head, "what I left on your machine- I was angry and pissed off. You used me." She did not flinch at the words. He was right anyway. She used him, and she was pretty sure he was trying to use her too. "I never meant for you to be hurt. I didn't know who Daniel was until recently, from the talks we've heard. I wouldn't have spent almost two years caring for that kid if I knew early on he was Klaus'. By the time we put it all together the kid was too adorable to kill."

And she was glad, because there was very real fondness that she saw in him when he first handed the baby to her. She could not believe she imagined that. "You wouldn't have hurt a child," she said honestly. "You and I may have been lying through our teeth most of our friendship, Marcel, but I think I still know you enough to be sure you couldn't have lifted a finger against Daniel."

"I wouldn't have handed him over just like that, but his guys kept getting killed by the pack," he told her. "And my guys are my family. Klaus knows that. My family is above everything else."

"So you knew that somehow, this kid who's in your care has werewolves after him."

Marcel licked his lips, then nodded. "I have witches trembling at my very name. Didn't take me long to realize my beloved sire knocked up a wolf. He always did enjoy exotic women back in the day. I can tell you, there is not one type of supernatural creature that he hasn't tasted."

It should have hurt. Normal girls would have been threatened by stories like that. But new or old, undefined or fully committed, nameless or descriptionless as was her relationship with Klaus, Caroline's own personality could not even take exception to what she knew she had. "Why did you give him to me?"

Marcel smiled, leaned forward, then reached forward and touched a lock of her hair. His eyes were regretful when he told her, "Because you, Caroline, coming into New Orleans all alone, gorgeous, with no strings holding you back-you were always too impossible to be real."

Elijah was right then, Caroline thought, her head spinning thinking of all the times she was so exposed, so vulnerable, without even knowing how much. She had been too comfortable thinking that Marcel knew nothing about her.

"It was a pity," he continued, "because for a few hours there I almost bought in to the entire damsel in distress thing you had going for you." She had not been as clever as she thought, fully believing she had the upper hand. He smiled grimly. "I bought into it hook, line and sinker that I had to make sure you didn't get killed walking around the French Quarter that night."

Caroline caught her breath. He knew, even then, so early in the game. Elijah was right, dammit. She hated that he was right.

"So sweet and innocent and prim around me. And then I see you fucking my demon sire against a stinking back alley wall."

She sharply sucked in her breath, her skin crawling at the thought, drowning in the intense memories of Klaus all over and around and inside her, knowing that Marcel had been watching.

"By the time I figured out what I had in my hands, I thought you wouldn't mind taking care of the cub."

She was glad that Marcel had the presence of mind to pull her into the room. Caroline would have been mortified had he whispered all this while they were surrounded. She wanted to slip away, but this was exactly why she traversed the quarter to get in touch with him, no matter how dangerous it was. Marcel would give her answers that Klaus and Elijah would never find out all on their own, because of precisely that—they were on their own. Marcel had a network. It was merely a lucky surprise that Marcel still thought fondly enough of her that he did not sic his army on her.

"Fine." She was not going to blame him for handing Daniel to her, no matter what danger it brought to her life. When he gave her Daniel, he gave the boy back to a family that had lost all hope for him. Immediately Hayley's sad, longing dark eyes teased her brain again. She shook away the vision. "Hayley—Daniel's mother-" she choked out. "She says her family has prophesied a child, an Alpha that can help them rise back to their old power in Louisiana. I need them to stop trying to take Daniel away."

His eyes narrowed. "I heard about the attack in your house, Caroline. I'm willing to bet they aren't the family that Hayley was looking for. They were too messy, too violent, too weak. "

"They almost killed me!" she threw back.

Marcel shook his head. "There are two packs after him-both part of the original. Only one Alpha can bring them together after they split off centuries ago. That's why they both want Daniel. It's not so bad, you know, being the Alpha, being respected."

"It's a child. You can't put the fate of two packs on one baby."

"It's up to his mother," was Marcel's response. "Look at millions of people in the world looking for a purpose in life."

Klaus left a bloodbath trying to release his inner werewolf, when someone tried to take away from him who he truly was. And he left a bloodbath trying to raise a hybrid army for a semblance of a family.

"Are you going to keep him away from greatness if that is his destiny?"

She took a breath, her brain working out what he had said. Her phone vibrated, and Caroline took it out of her pocket and read the message.

"My sire is looking for you," he stated, not asked. Caroline nodded once and turned away. "You know you're too good for him, don't you?"

And for the longest time she had acknowledged Klaus' evil, knew he was terrible and he had done so many things wrong in the last thousand years. Not now. Not when the blood he spilled in the last few years had been to protect her. Not when she was the one who was taking away a child from his mother. Not when she sometimes woke up with dreams of killing Hayley, and knowing she could live happily ever after pretending to be a family. Not when all he had done was for her.

But Marcel did not need to know that. Maybe evidences of her darkness would be just a little secret between her and Klaus.

She walked to the door, but before she left she turned back to Marcel. "You saw me that night with him," she repeated. His silence was acknowledgment. "If you knew I was involved with Klaus all along, why did you spare me?" Because he let it play out, let her wrap him around her little finger, was lulled enough for her to be able to take his one weapon against Klaus.

"Maybe I didn't want Klaus and his wrath coming down on me."

Caroline smiled sadly. "Marcel, you are too arrogant to make decisions based on fear of Klaus."

He chuckled. "Then maybe it's because you understood me so well. It's not often I come across anyone who gets me the way you do."

"You know, if we met any other way we could have been friends."

Marcel nodded. "I don't doubt that one bit, Caroline. Now go, before I remember you stole my only leverage against my immortal enemy."

**KLAUS**

She came to him, late in the night. When she stopped at his bedroom, he immediately sat up in the bed that he hardly slept on. In the dead of the night she was a golden silhouette at the doorway. All he could do was to set aside the pad and the pencil on the bedside table and drink in the sight of her.

"I'm glad you're home," he said to her, and tamped down the urge to ask where she had been, what she had been doing. She was safe and home and in his room. The child was asleep in the other room, and she had been given space to sleep in but she was standing there.

Klaus padded across the bedroom and stopped in front of her, still standing on the threshold of his room. When he tipped up her chin so he could look at her face, he saw the exhaustion and the loneliness and something much more. There was a heartbreak in her eyes that he had only ever seen in his reflection. "What is it, love?"

And then her cool smooth hands were on his neck, cupping his face, resting on his shoulders, pulling him to her. He let her guide him down so she could wrap her arms around him and her mouth would reach his. When her lips rested on his, Klaus pressed back at once.

"Caroline," he whispered, and as they kissed and she held onto him so tightly, as if she could not let him go, he heard the murmur low in her throat, like she choked on his name. He could not tell what it was, but it had been building since the park, deep inside of her he could tell, and the emotions that she hid all the more called to him.

She did not meet his eyes, like she knew he was trying to read her. Instead she buried her lips in his neck near the point where his pulse used to beat when he was alive. Klaus felt the wetness of her tears on his neck.

He could feel himself, hardening, tightening, being this close and this intimate with her. "Caroline, love, tell me what happened."

But she was shedding her clothes even while he pleaded, pushing away his, finding instead of talking the need to be pressed up against each other. It was nothing strange or new to him, so he let her and helped her. Shirtless now, with her standing only in her panties, Klaus moved them over to the bed. He pushed her back on the bed and then pushed down his own pants to his ankles.

Klaus climbed on the bed, resting his knees between her legs. He looked down at her with her hair fanned around her head, registered the red-rimmed eyes and the tears on her cheeks. He reached out a tentative finger and wiped the tears from her cheeks. Klaus laid down on top of her and kissed her, his lips hard and searching on hers.

Not once had he told her he loved her, but she knew, believed it, never doubted it. And he swore whatever it was that bothered her now he was going to fix it, was going to find a way to make her happy. Because that was all he ever wanted the moment he met her.

"Make love to me," she whispered thickly through her tears. He raised himself on his elbows and looked down at her. "Just make me forget." And then, with a pleading look up to him, she hooked arm around around his neck and said, "Will you compel me to forget if I asked you?"

He raised himself up, extricating himself from her arms, and then sat back on the bed, looking at where she was lying there. He licked his lips, then rubbed a hand on his nape. "I think we need to set some ground rules, love."

It was only then, it seemed, that she realized what she had asked for. Her face fell. Caroline sat up on the bed, still naked save for her panties. She released a breath, then stood up and ran across the room to the bathroom door. He heard the running water of the shower and listened intently until he heard the soft sobbing noise.

He watched her from the bathroom doorway as the shower fell on her shaking, sobbing body. She looked up at him through the water. Klaus stepped into the shower and blocked the water, feeling it pelting his back. At least without the steady barrage of the water, he could see clearly which tracks of liquid on her face were tears. "I think by now you and I both know, Caroline, that we're spending the rest of our immortal lives together." It was the closest he had come to a proposal, but he had always referred to their relationship as forever. "I have all the time in the world to figure out the reason when you come to me upset or in tears. Hell, I can even be flexible and make love to you any time you ask, at the drop of a hat—in an alley, in bed, in fucking Space Mountain."

She was looking up at him still, listening and watching while tears welled in her eyes.

"But you don't ask me to compel you. I will never compel you," he told her, half to admonish, half to promise. "When you're with me, you choose me."

Her eyes half-lidded, she nodded, clinging to him and pressing herself against his wet body as she whispered into his ear, "I'm sorry."

And then he slid around her so she would be back under the shower. He reached for the soap and slid the slick bar over her chest, working up a lather that he helped rub over her arms and her back and her stomach. "Now tell me what's wrong. I'll help you. I'll fix it for you."

Caroline reached for the knob of the shower and turned the water to full blast, letting him help wash away the soap. She clutched at his bare shoulders. Caroline reached for shampoo and washed his hair, gently rinsing and telling him quietly, while the water half-drowned her voice. "Remember when I told you I loved you?"

He kissed the corner of her lips. "Like it was yesterday."

"Remember when you promised me that you would take me anywhere in the world?" He was quiet then, because he would never forget. And she knew it. Klaus pressed against her, nipping at her jaw. She stroked her fingers in his hair, buried her nose in it. "I want to leave, Klaus. I want you to show me all the cities you love. I want you to take me tomorrow."

And if she could sink into him, the way she melted in his arms, he would gladly allow himself to vanish into her as well. They were all the words he had wanted to hear from the day he led her, an angel in blue, dancing across the floor.

But she was no longer that naïve girl that knew him for nothing but fear.

He was no longer just the big bad villain that came to threaten her friends.

So he said the name, because now it made sense why she would be so devastated, and he needed to know what was in her mind.

"Daniel?"

And that was when her tears rose again. Klaus reached for the shower knob and turned the water off. The bathroom was dead silent, and they were wet, naked, shivering, completely open.

"I can't be the person that takes a child away from his mother," she confessed. "No matter how much I love him. I can't be the girl that takes anything she wants. I can't be someone that takes the choice from a child. And I can't do that to Hayley."

Klaus cupped her face and looked into her eyes. "You don't owe her anything."

And she looked at him sharply. "Stop it. She's still your son's mother, and don't even get me started on that."

"Why don't you, Caroline?" He could have said it angrily. But really, there was no anger. If he could, he would beg for it to end it. "Go ahead and blame me for sleeping with her and knocking her up." If he could just anger her enough, she would not be so broken over losing a son.

"Do you think I'll ever blame you for anything that resulted in Daniel?"

But she was crying. She was crushed. He could almost not stand to look at her face. "I swore I would never hurt you."

She lowered her lashes. He could see the teardrops falling from her eyes to the tiled floor. "I know I'm not Daniel's mother. And I respected my own mother enough that I'm not going to ignore Hayley. She could grow into it, you know."

But there was nothing more to say.

"You would have been an incomparable mother," he told her.

He regretted the words even before he finished. But it was true, and needed to be said. One day, in one hundred years, maybe it would become another reason for her pain, when she had seen the world and lived life. Maybe it would happen in five hundred or a thousand years. But it would happen, and she would sink into the depression knowing she would never experience the fulfillment of waxing and waning in pregnancy, bearing a child with someone you loved. Rebekah experienced it. If he was half-deserving of Caroline, he could have delayed the realization rather than push it.

Caroline covered her mouth with one hand and teared up. She cupped his face with her hands and kissed her deeply.

"One day, when you find yourself hurting, you have to remember that I am never going to stop loving you," he told her, for the first time verbalizing what he felt. She turned her head and kissed his lips. "If you need us to give Daniel to Hayley, we'll do it. And tomorrow we'll leave, and I will show you the world like I promised you."

Holding on tightly to him, Caroline whispered, "Klaus, please, I need you."

He lifted her up in his arms, soaking wet, and walked out of the bathroom. He padded across the carpeted bedroom floor and ruined the sheets of his bed when he laid her there dripping. He did not bother with towers. Sodden, he climbed up to the bed with Caroline. He pulled off her wet panties and tossed it over his head, hearing it land on the carpet with a plop.

Her legs parted to make room, and he slid up over her. Klaus reached between their bodies and held himself at her entrance. "I need you so much," she said to him again. He surged inside her, and Caroline grasped his slippery back. She was tight around him, and he could feel her stretching again to accommodate his length. He pulled out and thrust in. "Please, please." She moved herself underneath him unsteadily, and he could see the effort bead on her forehead as she searched for some release of her own.

Klaus held onto her waist and looked deeply into eyes. There was a need in her, overwhelming her as she fought off her own sadness. He maneuvered both of them so that he would lie down on the soaking wet bed, and she was on top of him, her legs on either side of his hips. He guided her slowly with his hands on her waist until she gasped and recognized the movement that gave her the most pleasure. When she slammed down on him, Klaus hissed at the pleasure.

"Have at it, sweetheart," he told her.

Klaus thrust up in her whenever she moved. She pushed herself closer and closer, and Klaus rode out the movements with her. Finally, he felt the clenching of her body and he was ready to receive her when she melted limply against him when she found her release.

In the morning, when Hayley came, Klaus watched from afar as Caroline handed over a bag to Hayley. The wereworlf girl turned towards him and gave a small smile, mouthed a word of gratitude, as if it was his decision that swayed Caroline. He watched from a distance as Caroline gave a kiss to his son and spoke to him until he calmed enough to be handed to his own mother.

The boy would be fine. He had his blood. And he had a kingdom waiting to rise from the ashes.

He could not think of the tender child of the child, and the fresh scent of his breath when he fell asleep on Klaus' bed.

His heart swelled at the sight of Caroline standing straight and proud as she waved to the departing car.

And when she stayed there long after the car had vanished.

Finally, he walked over to where she stood silently. He wrapped his arms around her from behind. Despite her strength he could feel the slight tremor going through her body.

"If you want to turn it off, you have my permission, love."

And he could feel her body as she forced calmness inside her.

"Why would I turn off my humanity? It's what makes me who I am," she answered softly, unconvincingly.

He brushed his lips against the shell of her ear. "I'll bring you up when it doesn't hurt so much anymore."

She turned around in his arms and met his eyes. "That's never going to happen, Klaus."

He wondered if he meant turning off her humanity, or that the pain would be less.

"Now show me—where does the world begin?"

tbc


End file.
